Comments (168)

• Person

  I don't understand the insistence (in Bylund's article) on claiming that time preference is the primary cause of worker "underpayment". From what I know, it accounts for only a tiny sliver of the underpayment. Recall that in the socialist heyday, annual risk-free real interest rates were on the order of 1-3%. (!) Also at the time, a worker's labor-product might be sold 1-2 months after production. So, doing some quick math, this would convince a socialist why workers, assuming pure fairness and allowing for time preference, would be underpaid by under one half of one percent. In reality however, what drove the socialist movement was a perceived, persistent underpayment of more like 40%.

  The way to account for "underpayment" is through financial risk (i.e., risk that the product will not be able to be sold at a price that can recover costs), search costs (cost of connecting supply and demand), costs of finding arbitrage opportunities, and general costs of coordinating the process. These are much more significant causes of the perceived "underpayment" (difference between compensation and change in sale price of item).

  Published: March 30, 2006 8:47 AM

• Charles Hueter

  I get into regular arguments with socialist/communist anarchists in a large MySpace group. They oppose "absentee landlords," wage labor, and view anything to do with "markets" with either outright hostility or considerable skepticism. Coming at them from a time preference angle isn't one I've tried, so I appreciate this article.

  Published: March 30, 2006 8:56 AM

• David J. Heinrich

  I partially agree with Person's analysis.

  However, it is purely an empirical matter, whether it is financial risk or time-preference that is the largest cause of the difference between the market-value of what a worker generates, and what he is paid by his employer.

  Also, for rebuking the socialist position, it's worth noting that not everything that someone produces has a clear market-value. Depending on the liquidity of the product, and whether or not it is even placed on the market, it's market-value may be sketchy, or non-existant.

  Published: March 30, 2006 8:58 AM

• Paul Marks

  As you know communal anarchists regard private property as a convention - one they regard as harmful.

  This is the way that they counter such attacks as "you are just statist by another name, you wish "the community" or "the people" to crush freedom by stealing all private property and forbidding the creation or trading of any new private property".

  There are two ways to argue against communal anarchists. One can (as you do) make the economic (utilitarian?) case for private property.

  Or one can simply deny that private property is a convention, and uphold natural law (or rather those interpretations of natural law that hold that private property is natural rather than those that hold it is a convention).

  Of course the latter option can lead to deadlock "stealing is wrong", "I do not accept that it is stealing".

  However, all such basic positions can lead to deadlock - that does not mean they are wrong.

  For example, murder and rape just are "wrong", it is foolish (indeed rather disgusting) to try and prove that they are wrong by arguing, for example, that the pain of a victim of gang rape is greater than the pleasure of the rapists.

  The fact that criminals get pleasure from their crimes is not relevant - as right and wrong are not a matter of pleasure and pain (in short, when it comes to basic matters, utilitarianism is false).

  The English language has a basic flaw in that it uses the same word "good" to mean both good as in morally right, and good as in pleasure.

  I am told that other languages also have this flaw, so one must careful to explain what one means.

  This is relevant because communal anarchists will not tend to accept your economic arguments.

  They may not be relgious people (indeed they are likely to be athiests) but the same strong moral motivation drives them as drives people to be monks and nuns.

  One should reply to such a moral position with a moral position, rather than just an argument (however true) that economic output will be greater if private property is not violated.

  Anarchocommunalist communities are in no way attacked by libertarians. If the communal anarchists wish to set up such communities (whether religious or nonreligious) they should be allowed to do so.

  But should we not be allowed to have our own communities in which private property is allowed?

  If the anarchocommunalist says "no", an economic argument will not move their objection.

  As you know, we are then dealing with a fundemental denial of the right of people to live in a different way to the way the anarchocommunalist wishes.

  In short such a person is a communalist first and last - they are no form of anarchist at all.

  Published: March 30, 2006 8:59 AM

• Angelo

  Yes, it's weird how the few socialist anarchists I've come across hate one thing more than the state itself, and that is private property. None of them realize that the state is the biggest invader of private property.

  Published: March 30, 2006 9:25 AM

• Fried Egg

  I noticed that the Anarchist FAQ (that was linked to in the article) has a section that specifically deals with the Time Preference argument. Scroll down to:

  C.2.7 But wouldn't the "time value" of money justify charging interest in a more egalitarian capitalism?

  http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secC2.html

  Published: March 30, 2006 9:32 AM

• Geoffrey Allan Plauche

  Per Bylund wrote: "This brings us to a third and last important point that follows directly from the fact that values are subjective: there are only individuals."

  One could argue that you have this backwards.

  
  Per Bylund wrote: "The choice should be the individual's and there is no way we can say it is "right" or "wrong" — it is for the individual to decide."

  This is not quite true either. I don't know if this was your intention, but it sounds almost like moral subjectivism. Moral subjectivism does not automatically follow from Austrian subjective (or agent-relative) value theory, however. On an Aristotelian basis it is not impossible to know, albeit not with any firm certainty or precision, whether a persons actions were right or wrong for them or in general. Certainly we must hold to a certain amount of Socratic ignorance on this: we don't know the full context of others, their own individual eudaimonia, talents, hierarchy of values, circumstances, and so forth. This, Aristotle would say, is the limitation of the subject matter. But it is also certainly not impossible, otherwise human beings would be incapable of social interaction. It is then important to distinguish between two important categories of right and wrong: virtue and vice on the one hand and rights-respecting and rights-violating (criminal) behavior on the other. It is only the latter that justifies the retaliatory use of force to prohibit, prevent, and punish such egregiously wrong behavior. Just because someone is commiting vice is no reason to initiate force against them for "their own good" or the "good of society."

  Published: March 30, 2006 9:49 AM

• Person

  Fried Egg: let's be precise. Does that FAQ "deal with" time preference issues, or does it scoff at them and then re-iterate obsolete economics?

  Published: March 30, 2006 10:13 AM

• Yancey Ward

  Fried Egg,

  Thanks for the laugh. I have been alive for almost 40 years in the United States, and I have yet to see anyone forced to work for someone else in the United States. All laborers are free to accumulate their own capital and become single proprietors, or to group themselves together to form their own capital/labor cooperatives, and thus free themselves of capital's "tyranny".

  Anarcho-socialism is quite nonsensical to my mind.

  Published: March 30, 2006 10:32 AM

• Cosmin

  Charles, I'm not sure this article supports your position regarding absentee landlords. It says:
  "The reason they can do this, socialists claim, is because of state-enforced property privileges indirectly forcing labor workers into wage slavery."
  and
  "I will not argue with the identification of many historical and contemporary employment schemes being de facto usury due to privileges handed out to capitalists by the political class."
  Paul, those who argue for private property, as you do, defend it with the same blind loyalty you ascribe to your opponents. Too many private property advocates are too silent on corporations' "right" to private property. This, at least, we can easily identify as a convention.
  That leaves personal private property to be debated.
  "Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, even though he is famous for stating "property is theft" (meaning property privileges causing exploitative conditions), also stated that "property is freedom" in the sense that man is only free when he is the sole owner of that which is in his possession and that which he creates."
  There is no contradiction here, although I would've prefered if he used the word "possession" the secont time around. As in: "Property is theft, possession is freedom".
  What's the difference, you ask? Property is exclusionary in a way that has to be enforced. Possession can be exclusionary, but only when exclusion is naturally enforced.
  Allow me to demonstrate: Let's say someone owns most (or all) fertile land in a country. Private property says he can let his land go unused, drive the locals to starvation, so he can get them to work for him on his own terms. If the locals don't accept this situation, this owner clearly needs the backing of a strong power to enforce it. Private possession, on the other hand, allows him to remain the exclusive owner of the land only if he exploits it fully and leaves no room for another. To exploit it fully, he needs to hire the locals on their terms, else they stop exploiting the land for him and he forfeits his rights over it, leaving the locals as the new owners (in a possession sense) of the land.

  Published: March 30, 2006 10:51 AM

• Cosmin

  Yancey, we're talking here about a hypothetical, ideal society. If you think the USA represents just that, that it is a beacon of freedom, you're beyond salvation. The only way you didn't see anyone forced to work for someone else is if you're blind or have no grasp of economics.

  Published: March 30, 2006 10:57 AM

• toolkien

  My assumption (not having explored Black Anarchists thoroughly) is that their assertion is that Force is necessary to establish one person's right over property versus another, and therefore a State springs from that necessity (hence "minarchists" who want just enough State to preserve the existing allocations from Force).

  I guess they use a concept, one that I'd like to get an amplification on from the Austrian perspective, is who has a "right to first possession" over resources that enter production, and therefore have an opportunity to labor upon and take possession of it by a right associated with said labor. I think, also, in terms of the US in the 1800's when, in some territories, the homesteaders were the unfair folk, using the power of the State to drive out free-rangers, while others, the free-rangers terrified homesteaders while the authorities swung in behind the free-rangers. It all seemed to depend on paid enforcers with a semblance of ligitimacy to decide which was right, and all seemed to come down to who could better pay the Force.

  At the end of the day, how do broad resources come into one's possession and hold "good title", at least resources beyond their own current needs?

  Published: March 30, 2006 11:06 AM

• Yancey Ward

  Cosmin,

  No, it is you that is blind. Nothing, and I mean that literally, prevents a worker from saving and buying his own property/capital and supplying his own means, even the taxes that the government takes from him. You and many others mistake voluntary transactions as being forced- and I have found, as have others on this thread, that reasoned argument with such people is impossible.

  Published: March 30, 2006 11:15 AM

• Cosmin

  Yancey, your "I know you are, but what am I?" type arguments notwithstanding, even you must admit that government taxes prevent (even if only partially) a worker from saving. Add to that monopoly on money creation, government enforced property and intellectual property "rights", etc. and workers have no surplus (or minimal) from their cost of survival that they can save.

  Published: March 30, 2006 11:24 AM

• Paul Edwards

  Fried Egg,

  Thanks for the link to the socialist anarchist’s FAQ. Their ideology is coming further into focus and it is clear that it is founded on severe economic ignorance. I can also see they hold to it with a great deal of tenacity. Therefore, rather than debate them, I would simply allow that in anarchy, they should be free to form their own socialist covenantal communities, and allow that the anarcho-capitalists would form their free market, private property communities. The community that is closer founded on natural law, truth and justice, I am quite convinced, will also just happen to be the vastly more productive, affluent and finally more attractive community to live in.

  The socialists will learn, finally, that what the Austrians are espousing is not how they think things SHOULD work. They are just explaining how things are, and what economic system is therefore justified and so therefore WILL work.

  Published: March 30, 2006 11:26 AM

• Person

  Paul Edwards: the problem you'll find is that ansocs consider any such partition of the world (even 50/50) to be "unfair" because they still have to accord the other 50% "capitalist" rights, and have to live in a "capitalist" structure. Their biggest complaint is that people keep fleeing to capitalist societies "despite" their "inefficiency". According to them, the only "fair test" of their ideology involves eliminating *all* vestiges of capitalism (because otherwise capitalist will control some "vital" resource [which of course only probably became vital because they figured out the best way to use it]). In contrast, ancaps believe they could show the world the success of their system with only a tiny portion of the word. That should tell you a lot.

  Published: March 30, 2006 11:40 AM

• Yancey Ward

  Person,

  I agree. It is a weird sort of anarchy from which no one is allowed to deviate. In other words, it is not anarchy at all.

  Published: March 30, 2006 11:49 AM

• Yancey Ward

  Cosmin,

  So you didn't like the first part of my argument? Then you should refrain from utilizing such tactics yourself.

  I will freely grant that the state, in the form of property taxes, ultimately enslaves a person to some extent, regardless of how he attempts to sustain himself, but I will not grant that voluntary transactions between peoples represents the use of force by one over the other. If one chooses to work for GM in return for wages rather than plant a garden in his back yard, then that does not represent the use of force.
  

  Published: March 30, 2006 12:01 PM

• mikey

  I've noticed one thing in all my readings on socialism;The coincidence of collectivized farming and the sealing of the countries borders(from the inside).And vice versa.People will put up with a lot, but they won't sit still and starve to death.Person, you are spot on.

  Published: March 30, 2006 12:01 PM

• chad Chaney

  Here is my question: Why do Austrians and Anarcho-Caps embrace the prejorative ascribed to them (by which I mean defenders of private property through the ages) by Marx? Why call yourself "Capitalist" and claim that the socialists are attacking straw men, when the capitalism that they condemn isn't the free market at all but STATE CAPITALISM. State Capitalism has a cartelized market, socialized risks/privatized profits scheme, and now fiat money. Why not let us cast off this albatros that should only be hung around the neck of mercantilists, fascists-corporatists and such. Let us instead be... Free Marketists, Market Anarchists. Why don't we define ourselves?

  Published: March 30, 2006 12:09 PM

• Cosmin

  Yancey, not everyone has a garden in their back yard, or even a back yard, when you allow property claims on unused resources. Consequently, their accepting to work for GM isn't a choice. It was made under duress, under threat of starvation.
  Person, people fleeing to capitalist societies doesn't constitute an endorsement of capitalism as it exists today. They are fleeing awful conditions in their own countries that are often brought about by the very same "capitalist" societes (or like-minded local individuals) they flee to. Their action is not a solution, and they didn't intend it that way. It is a way out for them as individuals, but it enforces the situation that lead to their seeking a way out. Hence, it is no solution at all. They merely switch sides to being the exploiter rather than the exploited. Exploitation still occurs.
  Yancey, rejection of private property is not a deviation from anarchy, since private property itself is the deviation. Read my first message in this thread. How telling that noone commented on it...

  Published: March 30, 2006 12:24 PM

• Paul Edwards

  Person,

  If it is as you say, and the socialist anarchists advocate coercion, rather than voluntary covenants to govern their communities and even the communities of others, then they are simply statists of a dangerous form: Dishonest to the core in that they pretend to advocate the very opposite of what they in fact do advocate, the coercive state.

  Published: March 30, 2006 12:42 PM

• Person

  Cosmin, I'll venture a response. First, it's ridiculous to claim that working for a "wage" is "under duress". If one instance of selling a service for a fee is exploitation, all are, up to and including the $500/hour attorney. Precisely what alternative must be given before "wage labor" can be a free choice? In a throwback to the physiocrats, you and ansocs respond that individuals must have free access to fertile land, and this free access would be a reality if only those dastardly landowners didn't kick you off land you weren't using. But in reality, given the current population of the earth there simply is not enough land to give everyone fertile, subsistence farmland. The present difficulty of getting free farmland arises from this fundamental reality, not because of the property system prevailing. If you switched to a possession property system, people would just grab as much land as they could arguably be considered "using"; this land would cover all known fertile land before covering a small portion of the world's population. It would be at least as hard to get free land as it is now.

  Land speculation arises because of uncertainty about the future. Better uses than currently prevail could arise in the future. In a possession system, all land would be snatched up and held out of this future, better use. It would prevent inter-temporal allocation of scarce resources. Socialst possession systems simply do not accomplish what you suggest.

  Published: March 30, 2006 12:49 PM

• Yancey Ward

  Person,

  I think Cosmin has just proven your point.

  Paul Edwards,

  You, of course, are correct-they are dishonest to the core.

  Published: March 30, 2006 12:57 PM

• Person

  Yancey -- I don't follow. How did he prove my point? And what point?

  Published: March 30, 2006 1:04 PM

• Charles Hueter

  Charles, I'm not sure this article supports your position regarding absentee landlords. It says: "The reason they can do this, socialists claim, is because of state-enforced property privileges indirectly forcing labor workers into wage slavery." And "I will not argue with the identification of many historical and contemporary employment schemes being de facto usury due to privileges handed out to capitalists by the political class."

  I'm not clear as to what you mean, Cosmin. My comment was about the pleasure of reading a new way to confront the advocates of stateless socialism's economic arguments. I wasn't trying to imply Per Bylund's article effectively tackled the AnCom's "absentee landlord" claim.

  One of the things I find myself repeating over and over again to the MySpace group is actually existing "capitalism" (to use one of their terms) isn't what I advocate. I have to tell them property rights can be defended without the state and the institutions that would do that don't constitute that which I want to abolish. I've said several times that the state isn't legitimate in what it does...up to and including the defense of private property. That usually sets them back and twists them into attacks on wage labor, negative market outcomes, and their unyielding assertion that the employee-employer relationship is no less authoritarian than the citizen-state relationship.
  

  Published: March 30, 2006 1:04 PM

• Paul Edwards

  Cosmin,

  OK, I’ll comment too.

  “Let's say someone owns most (or all) fertile land in a country.�

  Who other than a state can do such a thing? A homesteader cannot homestead beyond the limits of property that he can use. From here, your argument refutes the justification for a state, nothing else.

  “Private property says he can let his land go unused, drive the locals to starvation, so he can get them to work for him on his own terms.�

  And the locals own no land and have never homesteaded the land? How does one arrive at such contrived scenarios without first the previous aggression of a state?

  “If the locals don't accept this situation, this owner clearly needs the backing of a strong power to enforce it.�

  Yes, sounds like a state, I agree. This scenario necessarily describes how a state might well behave.

  “Private possession, on the other hand, allows him to remain the exclusive owner of the land only if he exploits it fully and leaves no room for another.�

  Once the land has been homesteaded, and owned, the owner now owns it, period. It can be sold to someone else, who may use it or not, but he remains the owner as well, until he sells it, or gives it away.

  “To exploit it fully, he needs to hire the locals on their terms, else they stop exploiting the land for him and he forfeits his rights over it, leaving the locals as the new owners (in a possession sense) of the land.�

  Interesting concept of possession (property). You know, there is a section of my tool shed that I haven’t visited for several years and tools that sit there that I have not used for even longer. Tell me, have I forfeited my right to that section of my shed and the tools that sit there? Do I in fact no longer own these things? Your ethic is confused and can necessarily only lead to conflict.
  

  Published: March 30, 2006 1:06 PM

• Yancey Ward

  Person: the problem you'll find is that ansocs consider any such partition of the world (even 50/50) to be "unfair" because they still have to accord the other 50% "capitalist" rights, and have to live in a "capitalist" structure. Their biggest complaint is that people keep fleeing to capitalist societies "despite" their "inefficiency"

  is to be compared to the following from Cosmin: ....people fleeing to capitalist societies doesn't constitute an endorsement of capitalism as it exists today. They are fleeing awful conditions in their own countries that are often brought about by the very same "capitalist" societes (or like-minded local individuals) they flee to. Their action is not a solution, and they didn't intend it that way. It is a way out for them as individuals, but it enforces the situation that lead to their seeking a way out.

  Published: March 30, 2006 1:16 PM

• zombie

  It is absolutely priceless to see the anarcho-capitalists calling the anarcho-comunists loons. I'll laugh my ass off on this one for days and days.

  Published: March 30, 2006 1:20 PM

• Cosmin

  Paul, where do you get coercion from? Anarchism has only one principle: personnal liberty. Private property, insofar as it clashes with the personal liberty of non-owners, is met with force deployed in a defensive posturing. The initiator of force here is the owner.
  Person, working for a wage in anarchy clearly isn't "under duress". It is, however, when the economy is shaped in such a way as to not allow an alternative. If, as you say, there isn't enough fertile land to give to everyone, your solution is to allow those who own it to let it remain unused?
  That you believe that there is not enough fertile farmland to sustain the earth's population is your prerogative, but you are simply wrong. Deserts can be made fertile farmland with irrigation. Irrigation can use desalinized ocean water. Energy to desalinize can come from solar, wind, nuclear, or many other sources. The Earth could sustain ten times the population we have today. The only reason we have famine and poverty, with today's technology, is because it's very profitable to some. If there were no famine, how would anyone be convinced to work for the equivalent of a few cents per day? This situation only perdures because of the lack of anarchy.
  However, this is all irrelevant. We should debate ideas here, not implementation. The idea that you're advocating is that the owner of a chain of mountains can stop me from skiing virgin peaks simply because. Don't you see that as an unwarranted restriction of my personal liberty?

  Published: March 30, 2006 1:23 PM

• Luke Fitzhugh

  Per Bylan wrote: "Indeed, anarcho-capitalism has always been considered an oxymoron by the self-proclaimed 'true' anarchists." If it is an oxymoron, implying that capitalism is not compatible with "true" anarchism, then the latter must be communal anarchism, which makes Bylan's statement true.

  Then Fried wrote: "... communal anarchists regard private property as a convention - one they regard as harmful."

  And Paul Marks suggested that while one can make the economic (utilitarian?) case for private property, the the communal anarchists will not accept this "economic" argument." They reject private property and markets as harmful if not coercive.

  However this rejection becomes the flaw in their position.

  Three issues are relevant at this point: "morality" (right vs wrong), "rights" (both natural and contractual), and "goods."

  We have a natural right to life. This right implies the right to self defense. Self defense involves actions to protect private property. Thus private property, and the defense thereof, are part of the natural right to life.

  Regarding the issues of "rights" vs "goods," as Geoffrey wrote: "The English language has a basic flaw in that it uses the same word "good" to mean both good as in morally right, and good as in pleasure." Regarding natural vs contractual rights and rights vs goods, Geoffrey wrote: "... it is important to distinguish between two categories of right and wrong: virtue and vice on the one hand and rights-respecting and rights-violating (criminal) behavior on the other. The latter justifies the retaliatory use of force to prohibit, prevent, and punish such egregiously wrong behavior."

  Anarcho-capitalism wins both the economic and the moral argument against communal anachism.

  Published: March 30, 2006 1:24 PM

• Yancey Ward

  zombie,

  I think a more accurate description of the debate is "the capitalists calling the communists loons".

  I have never been convinced either group is really anarchistic.

  Published: March 30, 2006 1:25 PM

• Luke Fitzhugh

  Per Bylund wrote: "Indeed, anarcho-capitalism has always been considered an oxymoron by the self-proclaimed 'true' anarchists." If it is an oxymoron, implying that capitalism is not compatible with "true" anarchism, then the latter must be communal anarchism, which makes Bylan's statement true.

  Then Fried wrote: "... communal anarchists regard private property as a convention - one they regard as harmful."

  And Paul suggested that while one can make the economic (utilitarian?) case for private property, the the communal anarchists will not accept this "economic" argument." They reject private property and markets as harmful if not coercive.

  However this rejection becomes the flaw in their position.

  Three issues are relevant at this point: "morality" (right vs wrong), "rights" (both natural and contractual), and "goods."

  We have a natural right to life. This right implies the right to self defense. Self defense involves actions to protect private property. Thus private property, and the defense thereof, are part of the natural right to life.

  Regarding the issues of "rights" vs "goods," as Geoffrey wrote: "The English language has a basic flaw in that it uses the same word "good" to mean both good as in morally right, and good as in pleasure." Regarding natural vs contractual rights and rights vs goods, Geoffrey wrote: "... it is important to distinguish between two categories of right and wrong: virtue and vice on the one hand and rights-respecting and rights-violating (criminal) behavior on the other. The latter justifies the retaliatory use of force to prohibit, prevent, and punish such egregiously wrong behavior."

  Anarcho-capitalism wins both the economic and the moral argument against communal anachism.

  Published: March 30, 2006 1:26 PM

• Paul Edwards

  Chad,

  “Why do Austrians and Anarcho-Caps embrace the prejorative ascribed to them (by which I mean defenders of private property through the ages) by Marx? Why call yourself "Capitalist"…�

  Austrians have been using the term “Capitalist� in an approving manner since Carl Menger. In p168 of his book “Principles of Economics�, he writes in a footnote “Capitalists and landowners do not, therefore, live on what they take away from laborers, but upon the services of their land and capital which have value, just as do labor services, both to individuals and to society.�

  The complete footnote:

  “Rodbertus (op. cit., pp. 117 ff.) argues that our social institutions make it possible for the owners of capital and land to take a part of the product of labor away from the laborers, and thereby live without working. His argument is based on the erroneous assumption that the entire result of a production process must be regarded as the product of labor. Labor services are only one of the factors of the production process, however, and are not economic goods in any higher degree than the other factors of production including the services of land and capital. Capitalists and landowners do not, therefore, live on what they take away from laborers, but upon the services of their land and capital which have value, just as do labor services, both to individuals and to society.�

  http://mises.org/etexts/menger/Mengerprinciples.pdf
  

  Published: March 30, 2006 1:35 PM

• Person

  Cosmin, if you consider all land to be fertile, why did you add the "fertile" modifier to "land" in your earlier example? If you can't even use your own terminology consistently, how can we even communicate, let alone hope to convince each other of one's position?

  Published: March 30, 2006 1:40 PM

• Person

  Paul -- that's using "capitalist" to refer to an economic role, not proponent of free-market ideology.

  Published: March 30, 2006 1:44 PM

• Paul Edwards

  Cosmin,

  It comes only from the assumption that Person's assessment is correct that in anarchy, a socialist community would not accept the existence of a neighboring capitalist community, but would be compelled to eliminate by force, this capitalism whenever it was detected or had influence on the socialist community.

  I was not aware that this is part of anarcho socialism, but if so, it is simply another brand of statism requiring organized and socialized aggression to maintain its goals.

  Published: March 30, 2006 1:49 PM

• Paul Edwards

  Person,

  Huh? :) Sounds like i must be out in left field on that question. Ignore me if i'm making no sense at all.

  Published: March 30, 2006 1:52 PM

• Cosmin

  Paul, that was a reply to your previous comment. Let's tackle the newest one:
  "And the locals own no land and have never homesteaded the land? How does one arrive at such contrived scenarios without first the previous aggression of a state?"
  See Latin America.
  "Yes, sounds like a state, I agree. This scenario necessarily describes how a state might well behave."
  Private property can scale up to become as big as any state. You seem to realize that's wrong, but you don't believe it to be feasible. However, it existed in Venezuela, for example. The agrarian reform now undertaken there conforms to anarchist principles, even if it's implemented by a state. It is a defensive measure taken against the initiation of force perpetrated by private property.
  "You know, there is a section of my tool shed that I haven’t visited for several years and tools that sit there that I have not used for even longer."
  Exploitation of a resource includes having said resource available for imminent exploitation. That addresses your concern. I'd say you're safe, as long as you don't deny others the idea of having a tool shed. ;)

  Published: March 30, 2006 1:53 PM

• Paul Edwards

  "Exploitation of a resource includes having said resource available for imminent exploitation."

  That addresses my concern if it applies to my land as well as to my tool shed.

  Published: March 30, 2006 1:56 PM

• Cosmin

  "Cosmin, if you consider all land to be fertile, why did you add the "fertile" modifier to "land" in your earlier example? If you can't even use your own terminology consistently, how can we even communicate, let alone hope to convince each other of one's position?"
  I don't consider all land to be fertile. I consider a lot of land to have the potential to become fertile, but that developpement is being hampered by the same people who hamper the exploitation of current fertile land by claiming to have the right to let their "property" go unused.

  Published: March 30, 2006 2:05 PM

• Paul Edwards

  "Me: And the locals own no land and have never homesteaded the land? How does one arrive at such contrived scenarios without first the previous aggression of a state?

  "You: See Latin America."

  I admit i have not yet studied Latin American history. Are you saying private individuals or corporations were able to obtain state-like coercive powers over a population, without involvement with and/or collusion with any state?

  If i didn't know better i'd think you're presenting an instance that supports the need for a benevolent state to protect the little guys from big powerful private criminals. You're not thought, right? Because anarchy would not be the way to go in that case.

  Published: March 30, 2006 2:06 PM

• Cosmin

  "That addresses my concern if it applies to my land as well as to my tool shed."
  Of course it does. It's only natural. It's also entirely natural for starved peasants to take your land if its imminent exploitation is only lip-service.

  Published: March 30, 2006 2:11 PM

• Person

  Cosmin -- you do realize, don't you, that you can buy desert land dirt-cheap (sand-cheap?), right? Since it is obviously possible to convert this to fertile land (e.g., through hydroponics) as you just admitted, then obviously you have a viable alternative to wage labor and any wage labor you engage in is voluntary, right?

  Empirical prediction: Cosmin will reverse his previous position and then claim that land "only counts" if it's naturally fertile. We will go back to step one and repeat. My blood pressure will rise.

  Published: March 30, 2006 2:20 PM

• Roy W. Wright

  Can someone write out, in simple terms, exactly what qualifies as homesteading? This is the one area of anarchism (I mean, of course, "anarcho-capitalism," which I've always thought was redundant) with which I have a bit of a philosophical problem.

  Published: March 30, 2006 2:20 PM

• Cosmin

  "Are you saying private individuals or corporations were able to obtain state-like coercive powers over a population, without involvement with and/or collusion with any state?"
  I'm not saying that. I'm merely disappointed that too many capitalists side with the corporations and individuals who "own" the land today, in Venezuela, for instance. Here's an article that I just found through google and that I've skimmed over.
  http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1384
  And no, I'm not advocating a benevolent state. I wouldn't mind an anarchist state, though. :)

  Published: March 30, 2006 2:27 PM

• Yancey Ward

  Paul,

  Since buying my own tools would impoverish me, could you please tell me where your tool shed is?

  Published: March 30, 2006 2:30 PM

• Cosmin

  Person, is this a "love it or leave it" argument?

  Published: March 30, 2006 2:32 PM

• Person

  Cosmin: no.

  Published: March 30, 2006 2:39 PM

• Cosmin

  In that case, Person, permit me to issue my own money, don't charge me royalties for ideas on how to desalinize water (or any other idea), heck, I want to homestead, not buy, the desert(ed) land, don't charge me for oceanwater or access to it, and I'll gladly do that. However, deny me even only one of those things, and we'll be confronted with a situation of coerced labor, or slavery.

  Published: March 30, 2006 2:57 PM

• xteve

  Cosmin: As long as your access to ocean water doesn't obligate anyone else to provide you with the means to get this ocean water, then I for one (as a market anarchist) see no objection to your plan.

  I also reserve the right to refuse to accept your money if i don't think it's any good.

  Published: March 30, 2006 3:08 PM

• Cosmin

  There's one thing I suspect anarcho-capitalists of endorsing, and that is corporations' right to property. Anyone care to articulate that for me? Also, explain to me how this abomination can be reffered to as natural?

  Published: March 30, 2006 3:08 PM

• Cosmin

  "I also reserve the right to refuse to accept your money if i don't think it's any good."
  That is your prerogative. My money is only good insofar as it gives you access to the produce of my labor. Not allowing me to print my own money, though, means not allowing me to be the master of my labor. I have to conform to the whims of those who have money. That is why wage labor is slavery.

  Published: March 30, 2006 3:18 PM

• Yancey Ward

  Cosmin,

  I take it that you don't consider the shareholders as owners of that property? Leaving aside the legal protections granted to corporations by the state (for which you will find many detractors amongst the "anarcho-capitalists), what is the "true anarchist's" position regarding the accumulation and combination of capital by multiple owners? To be owners, do they have to actively "work" the capital they accumulated and combined? What is the definition of "work"?

  Published: March 30, 2006 3:19 PM

• Cosmin

  Yancey, the shareholders aren't the owners of that property. That's not how I consider things, it's how corporate law considers things. Shareholders are thus not liable for for the corporation's losses. They don't put their houses as collateral. How does a corporation even exist in anarchy? Where does it fit into: "there are only individuals"?

  Published: March 30, 2006 3:25 PM

• xteve

  "Not allowing me to print my own money, though, means not allowing me to be the master of my labor. I have to conform to the whims of those who have money. That is why wage labor is slavery."

  I doubt you'll find many here who'll defend goverment fiat money. Nor do I think many would deny you the right to issue your own currency. But somehow I doubt this is what most communists mean when they rail against "wage slavery" (hyperbole designed for maximun emotional impact).

  If I'm wrong on this, my appologies.

  Published: March 30, 2006 3:31 PM

• Yancey Ward

  Cosmin,

  Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that anarchy exists. Within hypothetical society, 10 people decide they will reconfigure and pool their possessions to create a car factory and sell the product for other goods. However, rather than work the assembly line, they hire volunteers to work the line in return for half the product.

  Who owns the car factory? Is there coercion?

  Published: March 30, 2006 3:41 PM

• Paul Edwards

  Yancey,

  "Since buying my own tools would impoverish me, could you please tell me where your tool shed is?"

  LOL.

  I do believe Cosmin said I get to keep my shed and the tools. But that is, unless of course, as he puts it, “its imminent exploitation is only lip-service�, which I must confess it is. Since I don’t have any plans to use those tools any time in the near future, I fear, based on Cosmin’s ethic, the starved peasants, (and you, Sir), may have a legitimate claim on those tools in my tool shed after all. (Therefore, I must remain quiet regarding their location!) :)
  

  Published: March 30, 2006 3:53 PM

• Yancey Ward

  Paul,

  Your silence about the location of the tool shed is oppressing me.

  Published: March 30, 2006 3:56 PM

• Cosmin

  The way I see it, wage slavery is the opposite of full employment. You can get full employment through dictatorship, which is inefficient since the enforcement apparatus is a drain on the economy, but you can also get full employment through anarchy. Freedom for everyone means everybody works. The old, children and the handicapped rely on compassion. That's ok, since humans are compassionate. :) Whoever is capable of working but doesn't work, doesn't eat. (If he resorts to stealing, we can no longer say we have freedom for everyone). He dies and everybody who works remains. The only situation where people wouldn't work is if all needs are met, which can't happen since needs evolve. Hence, every situation where people don't work has at its root some lack of freedom. Not being able to issue your own currency is one such lack of freedom. Exclusionary property is another. If 85% of Venezuelans are poor, it's because they don't have deserts to homestead in their country. Is it natural to let "large, privately owned estates of more than 5,000 hectares, roughly 12,350 acres" go unused while people starve?

  Published: March 30, 2006 4:00 PM

• Vince Daliessio

  Cosmin,

  Stephan Kinsella made an excellent argument a while back on here about how corporations are not by definition "evil" or whatever pejorative you want to use for them, and how a corporation is simply a contractual convention allowing one party to limit its risks to the amount of assets invested only, and is indeed moral. A corporation organized on Yancey's above model is simply a pooling of individual stockholder assets, including property, which by contract with its customers limits its liability WITHIN THE CONTRACTED TRANSACTION ONLY, to the amount of assets invested in the business.

  I agree that the modern form of state-corporatism practised in the West is indeed an abomination, though I will not be drawn into another argument about whether Wal*Mart has a right to use the interstate highway system! It isn't anymore real capitalism in the classical sense of the word, but rather a kind of fascism, where the state protects and privileges favored corporations.

  This is fundamentally different from the organization of "Yancey Motors Corporation".

  Published: March 30, 2006 4:04 PM

• Cosmin

  "Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that anarchy exists. Within hypothetical society, 10 people decide they will reconfigure and pool their possessions to create a car factory and sell the product for other goods. However, rather than work the assembly line, they hire volunteers to work the line in return for half the product.

  Who owns the car factory? Is there coercion?"

  Obviously that is not coercion, but you are way off in believing your contrived scenario resembles anything close to real life. What's stopping those "volunteers" from building their own car factory? Or having someone else build it for them, under the promise of payment with produce from the factory? And heck, why not print the equivalent in money beforehand, so the factory builders don't have to wait for the finished product? As you see, those workers could choose to work in the original factory, but it would be on their own terms. They would probably ask for more then half (depending how many they are and the cost of builing their own factory). To recap: on their own terms: no coercion. On owners terms: only under duress.

  Published: March 30, 2006 4:15 PM

• Yancey Ward

  Cosmin,

  I asked earlier what is the definition of "work"?

  In regards to your last comment, what is the definition of "stealing"? If one steals a loaf of bread that I, in my anarchistic world, had stored under my bed for next week's consumption, then is it really theft if the alleged expropriator needed it today more than I did? Indeed, why couldn't he take a nap in the bed before skulking away since I don't retire until 10:00 p.m.?

  Published: March 30, 2006 4:16 PM

• Richard Garner

  Per,

  I agree that socialist anarchists neglect the importance of time. Even Tuckerites. For instance, take occupancy and use as the basis of ownership (Tuckerites talk about this being property, others say that it is not property but possession).

  Possession is a basic feature of freedom: I cannot be said to be free to do X unless I occupy the relavent spatio-temporal locations. Now, if I go away on holiday, I cease occupying and using my house. Does that mean you should be able to move in? Tuckerites say not, that this is not what they mean. But if it is not what they mean, then what is important is not simply actual possession, but subjunctive posession, too. So, If I am free to toss a cabbage into the air in two minutes, I must be in possession of that cabbage in two minutes, and possession of that cabbage two minutes away must be included in my list of possession.

  But this moves us much closer to exclusive property wherein I can own something I am not actually using, because, were somebody else to use it, I would lose subjunctive possession.

  Published: March 30, 2006 4:17 PM

• Paul Edwards

  :)

  Published: March 30, 2006 4:19 PM

• Cosmin

  "Stephan Kinsella made an excellent argument a while back on here about how corporations are not by definition "evil" or whatever pejorative you want to use for them..."
  Good for Stephan, but I didn't call corporations evil. I asked if they were natural and if their rights are natural.

  Published: March 30, 2006 4:19 PM

• Yancey Ward

  Cosmin,

  What's stopping those "volunteers" from building their own car factory? I don't know what you mean, why don't you tell us? Could it be they lack the skill to do so? Could it be they lack the right possessions? Could it be they lack the discipline to produce real savings?

  I noted that you really didn't answer my question. In my hypothetical world, who owns the car factory if those who built it only hire workers to actually work it, but still get half of the product?

  Published: March 30, 2006 4:28 PM

• Cosmin

  Richard, where do you set limits on exclusive property? Are there any limits? Can one individual own a whole country? A city? All non-mountaineus (potentially fertile) land in a country? Can he enforce such a property right? Is enforceability a good way to gauge the extent property can take?

  Published: March 30, 2006 4:31 PM

• Cosmin

  I thought I did answer your question. Those who built it own it. That means nothing, though, since workers would only accept working there on their own terms, so they might ask for more than half the product. I've shown you a clear way they can provide an alternative for themselves in anarchy. Why wouldn't they pay factory builders to make them a factory, so they can exploit it on their own terms? They would choose whichever alternative is advantageous to them. If they don't work in the original one, that one's value goes down. So they're the ones with negociating power. Unless, when you said "Could it be they lack the right possessions?", you meant IP on how to build a car? But that's no longer anarchist.

  Published: March 30, 2006 4:43 PM

• tz

  I see a common flaw to both Socialist and Capitalist anarchism. But it is one of a commission v.s. an omission.

  The socialist thinks everyone will be good and wise and the functions of a market will simply take place without an actual market, and that everyone will be excellent to each other in this version of Bill and Ted's bogus journey.

  The anarchist things everyone will be good and wise and the functions which are fundamental but transcend the market (e.g. property rights) can be provided by the market. But strictly the property right belongs to the one who bids highest not for the property but for the right.

  The former sees the market as the devil and the latter as god. But it is neither. The market is an amoral and natural force of the collective wills of those in it. Those wills can be good or evil, and will affect what is delivered by the market. But the market itself has no will.

  The point of agreement is that both see government as evil - the former because it usually corrupts into some kind of corporatist system, the latter because it demands kickbacks or protection money from the corporatists.

  And on another note, a corporation is a body without a soul, and normally such undead things are both artificial and evil. The original purpose is to defraud in a liability case. The (weekend at) Bernie character goes bankrupt, but his associate's assets are protected.

  If the sum of the liability is less with a corporation than with persons, then it is a fraud since liability can not be eliminated, only transferred. (Or consider debt or risk which are they typical things which affect it - can we limit risk or just transfer it?).

  To have any reduction in liability, you need a government to force people to accept this (much like depreciated currency), so no anarchic system can tolerate them.
  

  Published: March 30, 2006 4:59 PM

• tz

  If I believe that people are self-owner's and Soverign, what if they decide in their soverignity that rights in general don't exist or that my soverignity doesn't exist. There still is an assumption that everyone will play by the same rules. But the whole point of saying values are subjective is so that everyone can have different rules. Foolishness is no better than wisdom, evil no better than good, insanity no better than reason.

  But if you then say everyone must respect the virtue of even reciprocal rights as soverign, why stop at one virtue?
  

  Published: March 30, 2006 5:06 PM

• Cosmin

  "If I believe that people are self-owner's and Soverign, what if they decide in their soverignity that rights in general don't exist or that my soverignity doesn't exist."
  Anarchy, for me, doesn't mean a specific person's sovereignty, but the principle of sovereignty itself, which is universal. This either exists or it doesn't. It's not decided by majority. That is why when I talk to people and they ask what, in anarchy, is stopping them from killing me, I ask them why the only thing they find wrong in anarchy is the lack thereof. :)

  Published: March 30, 2006 5:18 PM

• Vince Daliessio

  Cosmin says;

  "I thought I did answer your question. Those who built it own it. That means nothing, though, since workers would only accept working there on their own terms, so they might ask for more than half the product."

  See GM for an example of how THAT's turning out.

  Published: March 30, 2006 5:59 PM

• ns

  Cosmin,

  "Why wouldn't they pay factory builders to make them a factory..."

  Pay with what? Their savings or a loan from a bank? Then how is this different from the current system?

  Pay with their own money? Could you elaborate on this? Under the current system I can also print Joe Shmoe's Currency Units and buy anything, provided I find a seller who agrees to accept them.

  Or you saying that the prospective workers should be able to print their money and then *force* or *con* the resource's owners into accepting it?

  Published: March 30, 2006 6:06 PM

• Cosmin

  "See GM for an example of how THAT's turning out."
  Exactly! Inefficient companies go down. Everyone rejoice!

  Published: March 30, 2006 6:08 PM

• Vince Daliessio

  tz sez;

  "If the sum of the liability is less with a corporation than with persons, then it is a fraud since liability can not be eliminated, only transferred. (Or consider debt or risk which are they typical things which affect it - can we limit risk or just transfer it?).

  To have any reduction in liability, you need a government to force people to accept this (much like depreciated currency), so no anarchic system can tolerate them."

  This assumes that corporations cannot exist under anarchy. This is demonstrably false. Under anarchy, the stockholders could still pool property and limit risk through contract in a manner completely consistent with property rights (see Kinsella's article; http://blog.mises.org/blog/archives/004269.asp).

  What you are really arguing is that SOME corporations, which rely on corporatocracy to shield them from liability, could not exist under anarchy, and I would tend to agree. But that isn't the same as "no corporations". And under anarchy, corporations as an entity would have no more rights than "society" or "New Jersey" - they would posess only the rights that their stockholders do and no more.
  And the only limitation of liability they would enjoy would be strictly contractual.

  This would probably make some corporations uneconomic, true. But it has the advantage of preserving the property rights of shareholders.
  

  Published: March 30, 2006 6:10 PM

• Cosmin

  "Pay with what?"
  With the promise of payment with produce from the factory. And heck, why not print the equivalent in money beforehand, so the factory builders don't have to wait for the finished product? You see, in my world, labor itself justifies the creation of money, so you don't have to wait for investers to come with their previously saved money. The factory workers don't have to be coerced into accepting it. It will be equivalent to real value. If someone needs a house instead of a car, he can use the money to buy a house from someone who'll later want to buy a car. It can be transferrable in this way untill it comes back to the car factory who produced that money out of the mere potential of production. Or something like that.

  Published: March 30, 2006 6:19 PM

• Cosmin

  Is the property right of shareholders any different than their property right as private persons? If so, why do they need twice the property rights? If not, in what way is this association of individuals a corporation?

  Published: March 30, 2006 6:26 PM

• Cosmin

  Perhaps we need a definition of corporation in order to debate properly: http://www.investorwords.com/1140/corporation.html

  What it says:
  "The most common form of business organization, and one which is chartered by a state and given many legal rights as an entity separate from its owners. This form of business is characterized by the limited liability of its owners, the issuance of shares of easily transferable stock, and existence as a going concern. The process of becoming a corporation, call incorporation, gives the company separate legal standing from its owners and protects those owners from being personally liable in the event that the company is sued (a condition known as limited liability). Incorporation also provides companies with a more flexible way to manage their ownership structure. In addition, there are different tax implications for corporations, although these can be both advantageous and disadvantageous. In these respects, corporations differ from sole proprietorships and limited partnerships."

  Published: March 30, 2006 6:30 PM

• ns

  "Pay with what?"

  " With the promise of payment with produce from the factory."

  Then these are not money units (as in universal means of payments), they are rather commodity futures ("You build a pizza place for me, I give you a coupon for 1000 free pizzas").

  The Q then is why this system isn't popular now.

  Could be transaction costs of dealing with a zillion types of payments?

  =============

  "And heck, why not print the equivalent in money beforehand, so the factory builders don't have to wait for the finished product? "

  This is actually an unrelated item - idea to print new money and give to prospective workers.
  Problems - potential for abuse (bribery of whoever distributes the funds) + inflation.

  Published: March 30, 2006 6:59 PM

• Keith Preston

  If anyone cares, Kevin Carson of www.mutualist.org published a rather sophisticated work a while back defending the anarcho-socialist point of view. Kevin's position is to accept the legitimacy of markets and property rights while rejecting absentee landlordism as a valid form of property rights and also accepting the classical labor theory of value. Kevin is a mutualist in the tradition of Tucker or Proudhon, not an anarcho-communist who would attempt to totally eliminate markets and property altogether. I think the full text of his book is still available on his sight and I'm told there is a special symposium issue of JLS forthcoming that features Kevin debating orthodox Austrians. I sent Kevin an e-mail inviting him to join this thread. Here's my own review of an earlier pamphlet of Kevin's which foreshadows some of the ideas he outlines in his book:

  http://www.attackthesystem.com/capitalism.html

  Here's another economics article I once wrote for anti-state.com:

  http://www.attackthesystem.com/economy.html

  Per Bylund actually sent me a message praising this article when it was published.

  Among the areas of anarchist theory that I find the most interesting are those where anarchists tend to disagree. These obviously include not only economic differences but also matters like abortion, childrens' rights, criminal justice, racial and cultural matters,ecology, religion, etc. My approach to these differences is similar to that of Voltairine de Cleyre's "anarchism without adjectives" or Troy Southgate's "national-anarchism" or John Zube's "panarchy".

  Let's say at some point in the future we North American anarchists are able to carry out an anti-statist revolution on our continent just like the original American revolutionaries did. They modeled their system after Republican Rome (and it lasted about as long before the present degeneration into full-blown militarism). Let's say we model our system after medieval Iceland or Ireland or the decentralized, polycentric order of the Holy Roman Empire. My guess is there might be a plurality of property systems and definitions of property rights-Lockean/Rothbardian, mutualist, Georgist, syndicalist, anarcho-communist, etc. The divisions may occur on a geographical basis. Sort of an economic version of the Peace of Augsburg where it was determined that "the religion of the king is the religion of the people". It might be that "the theory of property rights of the established community standards is the common law", if that makes any sense. Or there might be different property systems in the same locality with disputes between members of different property systems negotiating settlements through neutral third-party arbitration. The broader economy might actually include anarcho-capitalist investment firms, anarcho-syndicalist unions, anarcho-mutualist coops or mutual banks, geo-anarchist land trusts, anarcho-communist communes, etc. just like the present economy has different kinds of economic arrangements. This is an issue that I am not all that personally dogmatic about. My main areas of interest are law and foreign policy, not economics (though of course I recognize all of these are related). I would point out that Rothbard himself favored the expropriation of the holdings of "capitalists" who received the bulk of their profits from state intervention and the homesteading of these by workers, consumers, et.al.

  Whatever point of view one takes on these questions, there is a practical matter to be considered. There is indeed an abundance of economic interests, ostensibly "private", who are in fact part of an alliance between state and capital. These elements are never going to give up their privileged positions without a fight. Would not expropriation of these elements in some form be necessary for the defeat of the state?

  Published: March 30, 2006 9:54 PM

• Peter

  And what happens if the new car factory fails for whatever reason? Then the builders never get paid. If they're paid up front (out of real savings, not monopoly money), they have no reason to care about the future of the factory. So factory builders who get paid in monopoly money (promises of future production from the factory, once it's operating) will charge more (regardless of the time preference issue), making starting their own factory less desirable for the supposedly-"exploited" workers of the original factory.

  Published: March 30, 2006 11:05 PM

• Vince Daliessio

  Keith,

  Mises pretty definitively put the labor theory of value, so Carson is starting at a disadvantage.

  I agree that there is an awful lot of capital that has been locked up by powerful interests in collusion with governments. But absent those governments, they will encounter a great deal of difficulty retaining it all.

  All of this is fairly irrelevant. I don't want any Morgan or Rockefeller property, ill-gotten or not. I simply want to be able to keep what property I have justly aquired. I want recognition of my right to protect that property, by force if necessary, by mutual agreement if not.

  And I want to live free of any of the crackpot redistributive schemes I have been reading here (apologies to the late professor Rothbard).

  Published: March 30, 2006 11:23 PM

• Vince Daliessio

  Sounds like you favor fiat money, which cannot work without government force. Not very anarchic.

  Cosmin said;

  "With the promise of payment with produce from the factory. And heck, why not print the equivalent in money beforehand, so the factory builders don't have to wait for the finished product? You see, in my world, labor itself justifies the creation of money, so you don't have to wait for investers to come with their previously saved money."

  Published: March 30, 2006 11:28 PM

• Roy W. Wright

  Vince, I assume you meant to say that Mises put the labor theory of value to rest. That's quite true, and I find it hard to understand why some people don't see how the "theory" is self-evidently wrong.

  Published: March 30, 2006 11:46 PM

• The Economist

  "Socialists refer to "capitalism" as the system in which the state hands out and protects capitalists' privileges — and therefore oppression of labor workers. They don't see that capitalism, in the classical liberal tradition, means rather a free market based on free people, i.e., voluntary exchanges of value between free individuals." Maybe they have the right definition and we have the wrong definition. If for most people capitalism means a state aristocracy of capital owners then we have to stop referring to capitalism. Free market is obvious and clear. Liberalism as well.

  "Indeed, anarcho-capitalism has always been considered an oxymoron by the self-proclaimed "true" anarchists."

  Perhaps there is no such thing as anarcho-capitalism, and it is an oxymoron that just makes the idea sound foolish. If capitalism is bad and exploitative, and anarchy is a bunch of hippie goofballs throwing bombs at carriages, then anarcho-capitalism can only be the worst of both.

  I'm not proposing that the ideas be abandoned, because the ideas are good no matter how they are labeled. Promote liberalism instead of capitalism, the free society instead of anarcho-capitalism. You'll find more people interested in what you have to say.

  Published: March 31, 2006 12:27 AM

• averros

  By and large, the difference between socialist anarchists and anarcho-capitalists is their attitute towards theft.

  A socialist anarchist thinks it is ok to "expropriate" the results of someone else's labour if the expropriator or the group of expropriators has more need to these goods.

  An anarcho-capitalist thinks it is a crime.

  The difference is not within the organizational or economic domain - quite socialist communes can happily exist within the framework of anarcho-capitalism - as long as they don't prey or parasite on others. (The opposite is not true, by the way).

  The difference is in core ethics. One camp thinks that a need creates a right to exploit others, the other camp thinks that no such right can exist.

  Now, of course, every thief thinks he has a need of that object belonging to his victim.

  In other words, socialism (of anarchist or statist kinds alike) is an apology of theft. Nothing more and nothing less. Correspondingly, a proper argument against a socialist is few grams of fast-moving lead - when he tries to apply his theory to your property.

  Published: March 31, 2006 1:09 AM

• Vince Daliessio

  Thanks Roy - yes that is what I MEANT to say (damn PDA).

  Here's what I would have written if I had been awake and using a proper keyboard instead of a teeny-tiny virtual one with a stylus;

  "Mises pretty definitively put paid to the labor theory of value with his proofs of the subjective value theorem, so Carson is starting at a disadvantage."

  The problem with the labor theory people is pretty simple - they want themselves, not the purchaser of their labor to determine the value of that labor. We know from Mises, Hayek, Menger, et al that the price of any good is determined by the value the purchaser places upon that good. Labor, to be properly valued, needs a free market of sellers and buyers of labor. In the past, there have been many episodes of the buyers of labor conspiring to (temporarily) depress the price of labor, often by use of government force. That is sad, but in no way invalidates the basic premise that labor, and goods in general, have no fixed intrinsic value, but are valued at whatever the purchaser is willing to pay for it. To think otherwise is to believe that labor (unlike, say, computer processing time or broadband capacity) has som unique, irreducible, premium value, that every labor hour is equally valuable. Think about how fraudulent that premise is next time you post to Mises (or Daily Koz) during the hours of labor that you are selling to your employer at a fixed price.

  Published: March 31, 2006 7:43 AM

• Keith Preston

  I'm not enough of an economist to have much of an opinion on matters like value theory. It's not essential to my own position anyway. I do, however, see a serious theoretical and strategic problem with the idea that the state should be abolished but the plutocrats, mercantilists and state capitalists should be able to retain their holdings acquired by statist means. This strikes me as akin to saying that the regimes of China, Cuba or North Korea should be abolished, but the Communist Party officials of these nations should be able to keep their assets acquired through their access to the state or that the Saudi monarchy should be abolished but the feudal oil barons should be able to keep their petroleum assets. I don't want any Rockefeller property either and I certainly oppose the expropriation of geunine private property like individual homes, land, businesses, etc. But to dismantle the state without dismantling the plutocracy with which it is intertwined would really be no abolition of the state at all. The plutocrats would create a new state the next day. Here's a Kevin Carson article on privatization that I think deals with this question reasonable well, drawing on the work of Rothbard, Hoppe, Hess and other anarcho-libertarian leading lights.

  http://www.mutualist.org/id45.html

  Published: March 31, 2006 9:07 AM

• Cosmin

  Averros, your equating of real concerns with theft is laughable. There can be no theft if you don't own something. What is debated is the merits of property, and that supercedes the redistribution of property in the form of theft.
  The point is, how does one acquire property? Homesteading? What's that? Can he yell shotgun from far away? Does he have to be there physically? If he has to be there physically to acquire it, why doesn't he have to be there physically to retain it?
  Vince, the seller also determines the price of his labor. If the buyer decides to only pay a derisory price, the seller doesn't have to accept. Voluntary exchange is mutually advantageous, is it not? Perhaps someone needs to reread Bastiat.
  Or at least hear what Keith here has to say. He seems to get it.

  I asked Richard to express his position on the limits of property, but any of you are free to do so as well. While you're at it, continue to extoll the virtues of corporations' rights to property. That branch of the debate has gone silent since I gave the definition of a corporation... Why is that?

  Published: March 31, 2006 10:13 AM

• Paul Marks

  Cosmin asks us why we associate anarchocommunalism (which he seems to assume is the only form of anarchism) with coercion.

  It need not be coercive. Indeed I have no objection to anarchocommunalists setting up communities (either as monks and nuns or in an athiest way, or in some other way). As long as they let us have our communities where private property and trade are allowed.

  If they do not - well then that is the coercion.

  Perhaps Cosmin remembers that even in Israel (a nation that gave great support to the sort of communities he desires) only 5% of the Jewish population (rather less of the Arab of the population) choose to live in such commumities - and that these many of these communities became less and less equalitarian over time.

  Communities that tried to destroy private families and private property did not prosper - people left.

  Hence Cosmin's desire not to allow any community in which private property and trade is allowed?

  This is not "anarchism", it is state tyranny with a mask on its face.

  Luke points out that a way of life of that denies private property can not sustain the vast population of the modern world over time (even the nonegalitarian socialist states, such as the Soviet Union, had to copy market prices for the means of production as best they could - prices from the outside world).

  I agree. I have never claimed that anarchocommunalists could sustain the vast population of the modern world over the long term - even if they tried to immitate market prices (and I doubt that people like Cosmin would even try).

  However, I still think that moral arguments are useful.

  There are many good people who are anarchocommunalists and many bad people. How are we to tell good from bad?

  Ask them whether they would allow communities that allowed private property - and you have a good indication.

  A person who says "no" will not be impressed by any economic argument, as we are dealing with a person who is rotten to the core.

  Whereas a person may not accept economic arguments and still "yes" (on moral grounds).

  Published: March 31, 2006 10:30 AM

• Yancey Ward

  tz,

  Well said.

  Published: March 31, 2006 10:34 AM

• Yancey Ward

  Cosmin,

  Your position on the limits of property would mean that the limit is what any individual, or group of like-minded individuals, can keep others from taking from them. I will grant that this is the true definition of anarchy. It is why I find the idea that anarchy will ever prevail in the future to be something not to be desired, and would, in fact, be the end of civilized man.

  Of the two so-called anarchist camps (socialists vs capitalists), the socialist variety is actually more faithful to the idea of anarchy, but are seriously in error regarding economics and material well-being. The anarcho-capitalists are mostly correct on the ideas of economics, but are seriously in error regarding the true nature of anarchy; indeed, many of the versions of anarchy they present seem to simply be proto-states in design- in other words, I don't think a lot of anarcho-capitalists are really anarchists despite what they think.

  Published: March 31, 2006 10:47 AM

• Cosmin

  Paul, I am not rotten to the core. What you don't understand is that it's probably impossible to separate the two visions in distinct communities. Someone growing up in one community might adopt the alternate point of view. If that doesn't happen, if everyone's happy with the arrangement, then fine. But when members of the two trains of thought clash, which one is justified? I say those favoring private property without limits are more likely to extend themselves, therefore they are the initiators of force. Their opponents are justified.
  And please, don't bring up kibbutzes or any other imperfect examples from an imperfect world into a debate about the principles of an ideal, hypothetical, anarchist society.
  Where do you draw the line between private property and coercion, Paul? Can one person claim property over a whole country? A mountain? The planet?
  I have "suffered" (not really) a number of contrieved situations (chemical sheds, bullets, cars...) placed before me, so indulge me one of my own.
  Let's say I (even legitimately) acquire a piece of land. Soon afterwards, however, I move to another country. I'm so busy, I don't do anything about my faraway possession. Eventually, I forget about it. Then I die. A number of generations later, my descendants find out that I had some property. According to you, are they justified in going over there and kicking out whoever they find "squatting" on that piece of land?
  Yet another case: I have an old car. I don't like it or need it anymore, so I abandon it in some neutral location. Someone finds it. He can't know if I still want it or not. Is it stealing if he takes it? If he does, am I justified in changing my mind and claiming it back from him?
  I know the strategy for some of you seems to be to ignore challenges and hope they go away, but, please, someone answer these questions and those from my previous post. Otherwise, continuing this debate would be as useless as a shouting match among deaf people.

  Published: March 31, 2006 11:09 AM

• Cosmin

  Yancey, I know we disagree on some stuff, but you have perhaps pinpointed, or at the very least, very closely approximated, the main point of contention in the debate. That is, pretty much, the goal of a debate, so, thank you for your contribution. :)

  Published: March 31, 2006 11:19 AM

• PR

  Cosmin, I'd like to take a stab at addressing your earlier posts about corporations. My understanding is that, under anarchy, the rights of a corporation are the aggregate of the rights of its individual shareholders, no more no less. What we have today, according to the definition you quoted, is more of a mishmash of joint ownership and state privilege.

  That said, limited liability is useful, and I believe that some form of it would survive contractually under anarchy. Shareholders could negotiate with their creditors that only certain, "corporate" assets will be seized in the event of a default. In return, lenders might demand higher interest rates. This agreement doesn't cover third parties, of course. If your factory blows up and damages a bunch of other people's property, each shareholder could be held responsible for his share of the damages once the corporation's assets are exhausted. Investors worried about ruinous claims could buy liability insurance for such contingencies.

  Someone else can jump in if I have any of this wrong.

  You've also alluded to intellectual property. There is a strong ancap case to be made that IP rights are illegitimate. Stephan Kinsella has compiled a list of links here.

  Published: March 31, 2006 11:52 AM

• Cosmin

  PR, I understand what you're saying, but would that arrangement be named a corporation still?
  I have nothing against limited liability defined by contract or any such arrangement. My argument is against those who want corporations as they exist today to perdure in an anarchist society.

  Published: March 31, 2006 12:28 PM

• quincunx

  "The point is, how does one acquire property? "

  The anarcho-socialist position of "property is theft" breaks down after one decides to eat. Yes, by putting food in your mouth you are claiming it as your property. How does the ansac solve the eating paradox?
  

  Published: March 31, 2006 12:51 PM

• Cosmin

  quincunx, should I quote myself, or should I let you scroll up and read one of my earlier posts?
  I'll make it easy for you this time:
  ""Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, even though he is famous for stating "property is theft" (meaning property privileges causing exploitative conditions), also stated that "property is freedom" in the sense that man is only free when he is the sole owner of that which is in his possession and that which he creates."
  There is no contradiction here, although I would've prefered if he used the word "possession" the second time around. As in: "Property is theft, possession is freedom".
  What's the difference, you ask? Property is exclusionary in a way that has to be enforced. Possession can be exclusionary, but only when exclusion is naturally enforced."

  Published: March 31, 2006 1:04 PM

• PR

  Cosmin, I think such an arrangement could still be reasonably called a corporation. You have many owners, separate from managers who run the day-to-day operations of the business. These owners can buy and sell their portion without the need to actually parcel out some fraction of the office furniture. Limited liability isn't as important as these features, in my view.

  The fact that even one-person businesses often incorporate today has more to do with the state-granted liability and tax advantages I suspect.

  Published: March 31, 2006 1:54 PM

• Paul Edwards

  Yancey,

  I agree with this statement of yours: “Anarcho-socialism is quite nonsensical...�

  This, I thought you agreed with “socialist anarchists [are]…Dishonest to the core in that they pretend to advocate the very opposite of what they in fact do advocate, the coercive state.�

  But this statement of yours baffles me:

  “Of the two so-called anarchist camps (socialists vs capitalists), the socialist variety is actually more faithful to the idea of anarchy, …The anarcho-capitalists …are seriously in error regarding the true nature of anarchy; indeed, many of the versions of anarchy they present seem to simply be proto-states in design- in other words, I don't think a lot of anarcho-capitalists are really anarchists despite what they think.�

  I would sincerely be interested in understanding where you are coming from. If the socialists are more faithful to the idea of anarchy than the capitalists, and yet the concept of a-s is nonsensical to you, and furthermore, you feel the a-c’s aren’t really anarchists, then truly, I have no idea what, for you, would constitute anarchy.

  Would you mind elaborating?
  

  Published: March 31, 2006 1:56 PM

• Yancey Ward

  Paul,

  Most "anarcho-socialists" that I have dealt with in debate are no such animal, and are intentionally attempting to borrow the mantle of anarchy (and, almost always, libertarianism) to advance their goals of regulation of the individual. These people are dishonest to the core.

  However, there are true advocates of anarchy, and I would tend to classify Cosmin as one, that do largely understand the nature of anarchy and do advocate it honestly (unless, of course, Cosmin is serving as the Devil's Advocate); but, I would not even classify them as socialists since the nature of anarchy cannot preclude the arising of a capitalist sect within it without the use of coercive state to stop it. This is why I classify anarcho-socialism as nonsensical. Even if it is obtainable, it is not sustainable without coercion.

  Now, the anarcho-capitalists don't seem to be advocating true anarchy, but, rather, a bare-bones state. I don't consider this dishonest, but just confused about where to draw the line between anarchy and minarchy.

  I hope that clarifies what my thinking is.

  Published: March 31, 2006 2:20 PM

• mikey

  Cosmin, If you scroll way, way up to your third post.Here you say the worker has no chance (0r minimal chance) to save.And you blame taxes,in part.First this would seem like an argument against taxes,not capitalism.
  More importantly,your assertion just ain't so.
  Where I live,consumer spending reminds me of drunken sailors on a spree.The bars are full every nite.Also casinos,restaurants,bingo halls,
  sporting events, concerts.....the recreational drug business is thriving as well from what I hear.It cant be that all these people are successful entrepreneurs.The poor downtrodden workers are in fact having a heap of fun.Can't stop em,its a free country.
  But hang on a sec.Every now and then you see an exception.Someone who has saved and started his own business, now thriving.What would become of this individual, so vital to human progress, in your envisioned anarcho-socialist world?

  
  

  Published: March 31, 2006 2:30 PM

• Ulf Ã…kesson

  Cosmin: two comments:

  1. It's a bit amusing that you choose states in south america to criticize free market
  capitalism. Those countries are prime examples of protectionism, nationalism where landlords
  could opress peasants because they were protected by the state. It's got nothing to do with free market capitalism.

  2. "Property is exclusionary in a way that has to be enforced. Possession can be exclusionary,
  but only when exclusion is naturally enforced."

  My question is; when is exclusion "naturally enforced"? And who in, in your anarchistic
  society, is going to decide when it is OK to take other peoples property? Sounds very arbitrary to me. The expression "might makes right" comes to mind...

  Published: March 31, 2006 2:53 PM

• Vince Daliessio

  Cosmin, I'm with Ulf - What exactly do you mean by posession being "naturally enforced"?

  And who decides when my summer abroad away from my homestead makes me an "absentee"?

  It seems to me you are indulging, in support of your an-soc theory that only states are capable of protecting property and adjudicating disputes.

  Your squatters, in an ancap society, would have an easy way to find out who owns the property from a private register of deeds, which would spring up to fill the void in the absence of a state. They could then make the choice to contact the owner or his designated heirs to arrange for a mutually acceptable arrangement for buying, renting, sharecropping, etc. Or they could just squat, and take their chances, knowing (or not knowing) if the land is owned or not. Their choice.

  Look, we disagree every day with the decisions of the owners of property over what they do with it. But if they have legal title to it, taking it over in any way is simple theft.

  Keep in mind, however, in an anarchist world of any hyphenation, there will arise a need to adjudicate possession and use of property. This will be ideally be handled by something like Stefan Molyneaux's "Dispute Resolution Organizations"; http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/molyneux1.html
  private entities that underwrite risks and adjudicate disputes. Or we could hand off all decision-making regarding possession to a group of people, or just one big guy with a gun.

  Oh yeah, silly me - that's what we have now! (does this make it clear enough to you the current real role of government? - it's all about control of property)

  But your presumption that somehow absentee or unproductive owners of land will be able to hang onto it forever is hogwash. It will become relatively expensive to possess land without it generating an income, since these services (dispute adjudication and physical and liability protection)will cost the owner real money. If the owner decides not to deal with any kind of agent, he will find very quickly that he is overwhelmed by lawsuits or the perception of him as a lawsuit or financial risk, hampering the "absentee's" ability to conduct business.

  In short, anarchy will remove the current cheap (subsidized) protection of property for absentee owners and replace it with a market-priced protection regime that will allow him either to employ it productively, or else take his chances and find that the vacant land is draining away his capital.

  Published: March 31, 2006 3:38 PM

• Paul Edwards

  Yancey,

  “Now, the anarcho-capitalists don't seem to be advocating true anarchy, but, rather, a bare-bones state. I don't consider this dishonest, but just confused about where to draw the line between anarchy and minarchy.�

  It just occurred to me I know how to get your position through my thick skull:

  Was Rothbard an anarchist in your view? Is Hoppe? If yes, then there is no controversy in my mind. If no, I would again impose on you if I may, to get you to explain what they advocate that is inconsistent with anarchy and how they advocate minarchy.

  Thanks!

  Published: March 31, 2006 4:11 PM

• Vince Daliessio

  Paul-

  Agreed - why is the anarchy advocated by Rothbard, Hoppe, et al considered "minarchy", while whatever societal organization that will be necessary to implement a "posession" rather than a "property" regime somehow doen't count as archy?

  If you are arguing that property is theft, then we really have little to discuss. If, however, you are arguing that property, as now constituted in the US often memorializes inequity and is sustained by fascist-corporatist government, well then we have some common ground.

  But my question remains unanswered - when does my extended absence justify your expropriation of my property? Can that point ever be fairly defined?

  More fundamentally - how can we reconcile such expropriation into a universal, moral, fair rule (like the non-aggression principle) that respects natural property rights ?

  Published: March 31, 2006 4:29 PM

• averros

  Cosmin - you may think my statements about socialists being mere thieves laughable.

  Let's see if you will also think so of my gun when you try to convert your blabbering into a practical action.

  And, no, I don't care of your issues and your theorizing - as long as you stay away from me and my property.

  Meanwhile, I have yet to see a socialist of any stripe who'd understand "mind your own business". I guess that has something to do with a deeply seated inferiority complex of those who cannot accept that there are people who don't like the well-wishing meddling and don't want any help in managing their own affairs.

  Published: March 31, 2006 4:49 PM

• Paul Edwards

  Hi Vince,

  Was that entire post directed towards me, or just the first paragraph?

  I feel like you are likely responding perhaps to Cosmin.

  For what little it is worth, my definition of property is the very standard libertarian one. Grappling with the socialists' definition of property just wears me out. "Property is theft" is a great statement for those of us who have an affinity towards contradiction and confusion. And for such entertainment, I also like the statement "up is down" although it lacks the hint of profoundness of the former.
  

  Published: March 31, 2006 4:56 PM

• Vince Daliessio

  Paul,

  Yep - I should have been more specific. I agree with you, as far as I can tell. And I want to find some common ground with Cosmin and the others. But I am not willing to compromise on what I see as fundamental property rights issues. Either you can own a thing, justly aquired, or you cannot. The things we aquire represent the sweat of our brow and the bequest to our posterity. To agree that these can be taken on any arbitrary basis negates libertarianism.

  Published: March 31, 2006 5:05 PM

• Cosmin

  Mikey, this is what I meant about using real world examples in a debate about principles. It is erroneus. The reason those workers are able to spend money on such "luxuries, is because they are actually exploiters. Sure, they're exploited, being forced to work for less than they could get in a truly free market, but they also buy lots of stuff manufactured with even cheaper third world slave labor, which is why they still have enough money to spend like drunken sailors. Do you think your example holds up for the whole of Africa?

  Ulf, you said: "It's a bit amusing that you choose states in south america to criticize free market
  capitalism. Those countries are prime examples of protectionism, nationalism where landlords
  could opress peasants because they were protected by the state."
  That's exactly my point. It used to be like that, but Chavez's agrarian reform does the opposite. It empowers the peasants and takes unused land away from landowners. Yet, you're all here telling me that's a bad thing. I don't really want to use it as an example, since it potentially comes attached with many other regulations that don't necessarily equate to a freer market. And where do you get that I criticize the free market?
  "My question is; when is exclusion "naturally enforced"?"
  We live in a physical world. There are physical limits as to how much a resource can be exploited. When those limits are met, exclusion is naturally enforced.
  Vince, you said: "They could then make the choice to contact the owner or his designated heirs to arrange for a mutually acceptable arrangement for buying, renting, sharecropping, etc."
  That the heirs have any claim to that land is baffling to me.
  The last few paragraphs you wrote seem to have you agree that absent ownership, and property of unused land are overall bad, and you even propose a sensible way to do away with such abberations. Perhaps our differences are less in nature, than in scale of response to such a non-anarchist situation.
  Really, though, I'm going to stop replying to any more questions untill I get answers to my own. Let me reiterate:
  I have an old car. I don't like it or need it anymore, so I abandon it in some neutral location. Someone finds it. He can't know if I still want it or not. Is it stealing if he takes it? If he does, am I justified in changing my mind and claiming it back from him?
  How does one acquire property? Homesteading? What's that? Can he yell shotgun from far away? Does he have to be there physically? If he has to be there physically to acquire it, why doesn't he have to be there physically to retain it?
  Where do you set limits on exclusive property? Are there any limits? Can one individual own a whole country? A city? All non-mountaineus (potentially fertile) land in a country? Can he enforce such a property right? Is enforceability a good way to gauge the extent property can take?

  Published: March 31, 2006 5:05 PM

• averros

  Yancey - "anarchy" merely means "absense of any form of political authority", meaning that relationships between people are not governed by some imposition of force by some privileged class of people.

  The connotations of disorder are merely the result of statist propaganda.

  In this sense ancap is no less or more "true" anarchy than communist anarchy.

  The difference is that ancap is based on shared ethics of non-aggression and natural right to self-defense, as opposed to the (anarcho-)communist fuzziness which boils down to might-makes-it-right at closer examination (and in practice, too).

  Vince - AFAIK, Rothbard and Hoppe never advocated any kind of state (even the minimal "night watchman" kind of it) - so they cannot be called "minarchists".

  Published: March 31, 2006 5:09 PM

• Cosmin

  Averros, you seem to be inclined to initiate force. Anarchy will give you your comeuppance.

  Published: March 31, 2006 5:17 PM

• xteve

  Cosmin, I'll attempt to tackle your car question.

  "I have an old car. I don't like it or need it anymore, so I abandon it in some neutral location. Someone finds it. He can't know if I still want it or not. Is it stealing if he takes it? If he does, am I justified in changing my mind and claiming it back from him?"

  If it's clearly "abandoned" then you don't own it anymore. It's like picking up something off the sidewalk on trash day. The trouble comes when I can't figure out (as per your example) whether you still want it or not. So I'd have to ask: on whose property did you abandon this car? (I'm not sure what you meant by "neutral" location) If you left it on my property without asking me then I think I can take it. If it's on your property then I can't. If you've abandoned it on someone else's property without their consent then it'd be up to them.

  But a big issue is whether we know whose car it is (was) & can find out your intentions regarding it. If we truly don't know then that changes matters, as we'd then have to guess. Guessing always means we might guess wrong. At that point, if you come back & ask why I'm driving around your car we can figure out a solution, providing we're reasonable people, or failing that, get the whole thing arbitrated by a mutually agreed upon third party. (As to whether that last part would work or not, that topic has been subjected to mountains of discussions on this blog & elsewhere, & I'm not prepared to go into it.)

  & if you had actually abandoned it, then no, you have no right demand it back. You can ask, but it would be up to its new owner, because that would no longer be you.

  I hope I was clear. I hope, even more, that I was right. I so enjoy being right. But if I'm wrong I really like being corrected, because then I can go on to be right.

  Published: March 31, 2006 6:34 PM

• averros

  Cosmin -- I know how to use force, unlike you armchair revolutionaries, and have my street creds to prove that. I did spend some years living in a good approximation of your version of anarchy.

  I also have ethics, and will use force only against those aggressing against me, my family and my property. Precisely because I know that unrestrained violence leads nowhere - and also because I know that law is no deterrent to someone with his finger on the trigger. Only his conscience is.

  With enough people like me, your dreams of taking from other people to further your own ends will remain precisely that - dreams. Simply because you're sissies and never saw what the real-life lawlessness looks like, and don't have a clue on how to survive in it - and so do not value the law which is in the human conscience, and not in the legalese or philosophical esoterica.

  Now, I have nothing against dreaming. Just don't make a mistake of confusing dreams with the reality - the one which can give you a nasty surprise you won't even have time to hear coming.

  The whole point of the notion of property is that it matches the innate law of conscience, and is not a function of some grand scheme of how to make everyone happy. That is why it is called natural law - and it can be entirely derived from a simple observation that people tend to act in their own subjective interests. Read Mises for the derivation of Austrian economics from this simple truth, and Rothbard on the derivation of universal ethics.

  It follows that any tweaks with that natural notion of property can only cause conflict and violence. Which is all your communist dreaming is able to produce in the real life. Been there, do not want to go back.

  Published: March 31, 2006 6:36 PM

• Cosmin

  It's good to ease your conscience once in a while, but that rant was completely irrelevant to our present discussion. I'm not denying you the right to defend yourself or what you own. I'm trying to find the meaning of property. Tackle this issue for me, will you?
  If, for instance, Donald Trump owned all the land in Romania. Is it your claim that it would be his prerogative to tell everyone to get off his property? Are you claiming he would be justified in shooting all those who don't comply?
  Again, I ask of you, ANSWER the questions I put forth, so as I can at least know where you're coming from!

  Published: March 31, 2006 7:00 PM

• Cosmin

  Xteve, your analysis seems to make perfect sense. Yet, it stands in contrast to those who would claim that my fifth-removed descendants would have any right to property that I even forgot about before my death.

  Published: March 31, 2006 7:48 PM

• xteve

  Cosmin, I would say your fifth-removed descendants would at least have a tenuous claim to that property, but no absolute right. I suspect even the most hard-core market anarchists would disagree on how valid or invalid that claim would be, which is why these discussions are so important & interesting. These matters are based in large part on theory & custom, & in a "true" anarchist society these issues would evolve & become settled over time.

  Published: March 31, 2006 8:57 PM

• Vince Daliessio

  Cosmin,

  Your fifth-removed, forgotten property COULD be left to the owner's children, or sold, or donated. YOU, however, do not have the right to dispose of the property, and it doesn't matter how much you admire Chavez or quote Proudhon.

  The thing is, your solution does not even touch the property you seem to covet - rich landowners use trusts to give their property to their children before they die - no triggering event for confiscation. Your solution only works against the property of people of modest means.

  I already stipulated that large tracts of unoccupied land are only economic to hold in a state system, and become too expensive to hold long term under anarchy unless productive. This would tend over time to distribute property more evenly while not necessitating aggression. This makes land ownership, absent a state subsidy a self-limiting phenomenon. Aggression against these property owners is unnecessary anyway.

  Sure, a person could buy up an entire country and chase everyone out. Then what? Where does the money come from to maintain and defend it? Anyone who has studied the economics of Europe in the Middle Ages knows the answer.

  And what business is it of yours who owns what? If the federal government sold off all the land it has locked up, there would be more than enough land for everyone, no redistribution required. In reality, however, many people find ownership too much trouble, and would sell it off.

  Why can't we just try a little experiment - simply remove state coercion and subsidy and see what happens? I predict over time a more even distribution, making forced redistribution completely unnecessary.

  Published: March 31, 2006 9:39 PM

• Peter

  I have an old car. I don't like it or need it anymore, so I abandon it in some neutral location. Someone finds it. He can't know if I still want it or not. Is it stealing if he takes it?

  Of course. You said he can't tell if you want it any more. If you made it clear that don't want it, he could take it (if he watches it for a while, and knows you haven't touched it for a long time, he could be justified in assuming it's truly abandoned; but precisely how long I can't say)

  If he does, am I justified in changing my mind and claiming it back from him?

  Of course. If you park your car during the day while you're at work and someone comes along and takes it, is that not theft, even in your whacky reality? Can you claim it back? What's the difference?

  Where do you set limits on exclusive property? Are there any limits? Can one individual own a whole country? A city? All non-mountaineus (potentially fertile) land in a country?

  In theory, I suppose, but it's hard to imagine how such a situation could come about in the real world. What's the point of talking about impossible situations?

  Can he enforce such a property right?

  I don't know. Hopefully.

  Is enforceability a good way to gauge the extent property can take?

  Not unless you believe might makes right.

  Published: March 31, 2006 9:50 PM

• Vince Daliessio

  I just realized that the episode of "South Park" where Cartman buys his own amusement park is relevant here. At first, he tries to keep the park all to himself, but finds he has to let in more and more paying customers to pay his expenses. As the number of paying customers nears optimal, the park becomes extremely profitable. Since Cartman's original goal was not to make money, but rather to keep the park to himself, he sells the park (and has the proceeds confiscated by the IRS).
  

  Published: March 31, 2006 9:54 PM

• drs

  Vince,
  that was a great episode. As for Cosmin's question regarding the abandonment of property, I like what Walter Block said about it. Basically if you are truly abandoning something you must declare that it is abandoned. The guy getting rid of his car could abandon it by placing a sign in one of the windows reading "ABANDONED" or something like that. If he leaves it on private property without the owner's consent then I would argue that the owner of the trespassed upon property has the right to claim the car if he makes a sincere attempt to inquire about its ownership (this exact standard would develop with time). However, I think few such property owners would actually take the car, because it could lead to antagonism later which most sane people try to avoid.
  Cosmin posed an interesting question earlier that I think we should focus on: how does one approriate unowned land from nature? I think that was the thrust of his question anyway. A person obviously has a right to the land appropriated for the construction of a house and the cultivation of a field or whatever, but, if I understand Cosmin correctly (which is not a given, I am really quite dim) can he claim the nearby mountain or the surrounding forest? I think that as a matter of natural right he can claim whatever he can physically mark off perhaps by placing occaisional signs along the border of the land he is claiming (kind of like that Gogol story "How Much Land Does a Man Need?"). Now in order to make this right recognizable he would have to file a claim with some neutral third party. Now it is important to understand that this is still a natural right and not one granted by society. To use an analogy, most of us here would agree that even if we find it morally objectionable, assisted suicide is a right. Now if Smith agrees to let Jones shoot and kill him, the two of them had better make abundantly clear that this act is agreed upon, otherwise Jones is going to face a big problem after committing his grizzly deed. Likewise if Jones is appropriating property from nature he had better show that he has indeed left some sort of mark on it (hopefully not by urinating on the trees) and that Smith (or better yet a group of people with enough standing to vouch for it) acknowledge(s) it. I suppose in a free market title organizations could emerge such as described by one of our illustrious fellow posters. For reasons explained by Vince, I think, he could not claim more land than he could handle. This is my take on it at any rate, please critique away. I think that Cosmin is wrong, but I also think he is whip-smart and so any criticisms he makes might help me to strengthen my argument.

  Oh as for Donald Trump buying all the land in some country, I must assume that he bought it from its present owners, so they probably made plans to move anyway, as for any unfortunate renters they would have to leave if Trump demanded it, but such is life. If I have two good kidneys and some poor guy needs one he can't just claim it on the grounds that he needs it, it's the same with the land. Now in all likelihood such an acquisition would entail all sorts of muddy questions, such as whether or not the land was bought from people with any legitimate claim, but that is not relevant here, in such a case the land in question would not really be Trump's and he would have to buy it form its rightful owner or not have it at all.

  Published: March 31, 2006 11:04 PM

• BillG (not Gates)

  drs asks: "how does one approriate unowned land from nature?"

  I am suprised that in reading through all of the posts here not one person has referenced Locke's proviso...

  Locke and others looked at all land as being originally owned in common (no one labored to create it) as an individual equal access opportunity right so long as no one individual's use/access infringed on the equal claims of all others.

  but some may ask "how are we to determine infringement?" when according to Locke's proviso enclosure for exclusive use was only just so long as "enough and as good are left in common for others"??

  the extent that Locke's proviso has been violated is determined by the amount that those being excluded are economically disadvantaged by having to pay economic rent to the excluders.

  so even though someone "justly" homesteads a piece of "unclaimed" land as the first appropriator where no one is economically harmed by the enclosure because there is a plentiful supply of equal quality and quantity lands subjectively determined by those excluded - that does not mean that at sometime in the future that enclosure will not be determined to be "unjust" as the attachment of economic rent to the location in question arises via a natural process as two or more people compete for access to scarce resources.

  the economic rent when it appears and if collected by the landowner then becomes a legal and monetary claim FORCED on those being excluded denying them the fruits of their labor and ultimately their right of self-ownership because to merely exist is synonomous with actually occupying space somewhere (a mutually exclusive arrangement)...

  because all inhabitable land is for all intent and puposes already legally claimed we can not continuously extend access to land for all those in need so they can freely excercise their right of self-ownership and attempt to sustain themselves but what we can rightful insist upon backed by state force if necessary is that the economic rent (ownership's equivalent) be shared equally and directly between neighbors in a community inorder to prevent the absolute rights to labor and thus self-ownership of those being excluded from being violated.

  Published: April 1, 2006 1:05 AM

• Ulf Ã…kesson

  Peter and drs: "You said it, Chewie!" :D That was more or less what I was going to say.

  Cosmin:

  Why is it that you (and other lefties) always takes some non-libertarian example (in this case South America) and use it to criticize landownership? Why don't you criticize the right to landownership in USA, France or Sweden? Is it because that massive landownership doesn't exist in these, compared to South America, more capitalistic countries?

  "We live in a physical world. There are physical limits as to how much a resource can be exploited. When those limits are met, exclusion is naturally enforced."

  That didn't answer my question did it? Who is going to decide about when the exclusion is "naturally enforced"? For example; do I have the right to own one fork or may I have two (if I have a guest)? And how is this distribution of yours going to be enforced without the use of force, i.e. without a state?
  

  Published: April 1, 2006 1:16 AM

• quincunx

  All this talk about abssentee ownership and property abandonment is unneccessary. Focus on the basics: eating and sleeping.

  Tell me, Cosmin, how can I have "posession" of say a banana that I wish to consume, but not have "posession" of the extra bananas I shook of the tree (because I didn't want to constantly climb it everytime I wanted one) when I fall asleep?

  How does my moral position change when I go to sleep?

  The sleeping is supposed to symbolize being absent - since you can not defend your "posession" unconciously.

  Why do you praise living a nomadic lifestyle with high time preference?

  Not that it's even possible. The ansac position, even if every person was aware of it, would still never happen. The ancap position will quickly emerge in such an order.

  Published: April 1, 2006 1:45 AM

• BillG (not Gates)

  I think "naturally enforced" and "possession" are too arbitrary but whether or not enclosure from the natural commons leaves "enough and as good in commonnfor others" (Locke's proviso) is potentially a better approach.

  if you grow the bananas via your labor (or what you hire) they are your absolute property - the question of whether your exclusive use of the land to grow them (which you don't create via your labor) is just, depends on whether or not you share the economic rent that may attach to it beyond Locke's proviso.

  if the bananas you shake from the tree are not the result o anyone else's labor (still part of the commons) then the question becomes whether or not they would command economic rent in situ (before any labor is applied).

  many people don't realize that Locke also had a "spoilage proviso" that became unnecessary with the advent of money...it was just that if private property (like your grown or picked bananas) was not able to be consumed before spoiling anyone could consume them without being thought of as theft.

  Published: April 1, 2006 8:43 AM

• Vince Daliessio

  BillG and drs;

  It seems we are making progress here - Locke appreciated the need for access and an inventory of unowned land. That's progress in Cosmin's direction without abrogating property rights.

  And we seem to be appreciating my point too that one has to be able to maintain and defend the property to keep it.

  Published: April 1, 2006 9:30 AM

• Yancey Ward

  Paul and Averros,

  No, I don't consider Rothbard or Hoppe to be anarchists.

  I wrote earlier that I consider anarcho-socialism to be nonsensical, however, the truth is that I consider anarcho-anything to be nonsensical, including anarcho-capitalism. I do not believe that there are various strains of anarchy- there is only anarchy or no anarchy. In addition, I don't believe anarchy to even be possible for human beings, and the issue of property is the reason why it is not possible.

  In anarchy, you can only hold property to the extent to which you, yourself, can defend it- or, as Ulf Ã…kesson wrote, might makes right. If I come along and take your power drill, and you are unable to stop me, then the drill is mine for so long as no one else successfully takes it from me. In other words, in anarchy there is no such thing as theft. The ideas expressed by Rothbard, Hoppe, and many others like Molyneux are designed to produce order,and to define property, torts, and restitution. Such ideas are an expression of a collective will. It is this collective will that is the state-it is the customs, the rules, and the enforcement mechanisms that define it. That collective will can turn itself to other, less desirable goals is what libertarians must always guard against.

  Published: April 1, 2006 9:49 AM

• Yancey Ward

  One last note.

  The term anarcho-socialism is complete nonsense. The term anarcho-capitalism is only half as bad.

  Published: April 1, 2006 9:54 AM

• Vince Daliessio

  Yancey says;

  "It is this collective will that is the state-it is the customs, the rules, and the enforcement mechanisms that define it."

  Not exactly. The state is an entity that has a force monopoly that guarantees that it, and only it is the arbiter of property, torts, and restitution. A community can be formed by people in contiguous areas, or even non-contiguous areas, wherein the individuals in the community voluntarily agree to an arbiter of their choice.Those who do not choose an arbiter ahead of time can take their chances. Those who choose a common arbiter have then a stake in cooperatively defending their property, since that will limit litigation and the cost therof, as well as the cost impact of defending their property. This is a natural community.

  This is the opposite of state - this is individuals voluntarily cooperating for individual and mutual benefit. So no, I do not accept your notion that there is no such thing as anarchy. Anarchy is simply the condition of lacking the predations of a force monopoly, which we call the state.

  Published: April 1, 2006 10:29 AM

• Yancey Ward

  Vince,

  You and I define anarchy differently, and, as result, define the state differently. The problem I see with the system you outlined is the fact that there will be those who refuse to choose an arbiter or refuse to abide by arbitrations imposed. Then what are the enforcement mechanisms?

  I guess I just don't see distributed power as being non-state, just a different kind of one.

  Published: April 1, 2006 11:16 AM

• mikey

  The problem with regular socialism was that it was impossible to perform economic calculation without meaningful money prices.
  How would anarcho-socialism avoid this? I'm finding it hard to picture meaningful prices in the absence of the institution of private property.
  

  Published: April 1, 2006 11:58 AM

• Richard Garner

  Cosmin,

  I don't think there is necessarily any problem with owning a country. There may be problems with particular cases, and the specific condition I would assert is that appropriation occurs justly.

  Published: April 1, 2006 12:09 PM

• Vince Daliessio

  An interesting quote from Emma Goldman in a lewrockwell.com article today;

  "Anarchism and violence are as far apart from each other as liberty and tyranny. I care not what the rabble says; but to those who are still capable of understanding I would say that Anarchism, being a philosophy of life, aims to establish a state of society in which man's inner make-up and the conditions around him, can blend harmoniously, so that he will be able to utilize all the forces to enlarge and beautify the life about him. To those I would also say that I do not advocate violence; government does this, and force begets force. It is a fact which cannot be done away with through the prosecution of a few men and women, or by more stringent laws – this only tends to increase it.""

  Yancey, I think the answer to your question is that very few would choose not to live harmoniously with others. Those people could possibly suffer depredations from other refusers. Or they could in part become free riders on the arrangements of others. Either way, the vast majority would indeed participate in voluntary systems, revealing our current system as a huge subsidy for those who do not wish to bear the costs of their property.

  Published: April 1, 2006 1:16 PM

• Paul Edwards

  Mikey,

  “How would anarcho-socialism avoid this? I'm finding it hard to picture meaningful prices in the absence of the institution of private property.�

  On closer inspection, I think what you will find is that rather than socialism, what the a-s gang actually advocates is syndicalism. This is a system where the workers own the capital they work with. So there is private ownership of the factors of production, so to speak, however, as Mises explains, the system is so ridiculously impracticable that no economists ever took it seriously, much less had the audacity to openly advocate it.

  Published: April 1, 2006 3:29 PM

• Vince Daliessio

  As to the abandonment issue; if the car is abandoned on my property, I have somewhat more rights to it than if it is abandoned on property belonging to someone or no one else. None of this, however, excuses my rudeness if I decide to annex it without at least attempting to ascertain the owner of the car and what HIS wish for it is, as Dr. Block implies.

  Of course, if it is abandoned on my property, I certainly would have considerable rights regarding the disposition of the property, but until I get the owner's consent, I am at some risk of being ruled against if both of us have, for instance, the same DRO or arbitration agency in common. After all, just because it is on my property, that doesn't mean it IS my property. Otherwise I would own any number of civilian and military aircraft that have trespassed through my "cone of ownership"...

  Published: April 1, 2006 4:00 PM

• Cosmin

  Vince, you said: "I already stipulated that large tracts of unoccupied land are only economic to hold in a state system, and become too expensive to hold long term under anarchy unless productive. This would tend over time to distribute property more evenly while not necessitating aggression. This makes land ownership, absent a state subsidy a self-limiting phenomenon."
  This is where we disagree. While keeping it unoccupied might be too expensive, the owner simply has too much power over the rest of the population. He can drive the price of their labor down by threatening them with starvation. Who do you think would crack first? Is that not restricting their freedom?
  Locke's provisions, that someone brought up here, might solve all this, but I just came from five hours of badminton and can't think clearly enough to read it properly. Cheers all!

  Published: April 1, 2006 5:24 PM

• Paul Edwards

  Yancey,

  “No, I don't consider Rothbard or Hoppe to be anarchists.�

  OK. Perhaps this simply means we first need to sync up on the definition of the state, which is: a territorially based coercive monopoly on decision making or jurisdiction including the monopoly on the use of force and taxation.

  This is my definition of a state. I define anarchy to be the absence of such a state. I claim that this definition of anarchy is consistent with both property and free market capitalism. I hold that this form of anarchy is well suited to private protection services, private law enforcement, private courts, and private defense. I dispute your contention that anarchy implies a “might makes right� ethic. I argue rather that it is a favorable environment for the development and protection of libertarian values.

  You are suggesting that only a state can implement order and provide protection from conflict by protecting property and adhering to libertarian values. I am arguing that the state is the one entity that guarantees such values will be disregarded.

  It is almost as if you (amazingly) see Rothbard and Hoppe as actually minarchists. Am I interpreting you correctly?
  

  Published: April 1, 2006 5:53 PM

• Paul Edwards

  “The problem I see with the system you outlined is the fact that there will be those who refuse to choose an arbiter or refuse to abide by arbitrations imposed. Then what are the enforcement mechanisms?�

  What is the impact of an insurance company’s client refusing to abide by its judgments or preferring to remain uninsured? Firstly, he will become uninsurable or will be uninsured. That is, he will become an outcast, an outlaw, or essentially so. Secondly, he will become very economically and physically vulnerable because he is now unprotected. No insurance companies will take up his cause if his victims take out, for instance, disproportional compensation against him for his crimes. In fact, he will be at high risk against other criminals encroaching on him randomly. He will only be able to depend on himself for self defense. I can imagine life would be fast and short for the unethical rebel unwilling to submit to arbitration in anarchy.

  It hardly even seems like an option.

  Published: April 1, 2006 6:05 PM

• Vince Daliessio

  Cosmin says;

  "While keeping it unoccupied might be too expensive, the owner simply has too much power over the rest of the population. He can drive the price of their labor down by threatening them with starvation."

  How? You seem to agree that locking up large parcels of land, absent the security subsidy that the state represents would be uneconomical, and would decrease over time. So how does the owner have "too much power", or threaten others with starvation?

  Sounds to me like if he has to start paying to defend his property he is going to have to start selling it off, cheap.

  And since when do you need land to eat? Millions of people in NYC, LA, PHL, BOS, etc do not own a square foot of anything, and most of them eat TOO much, if anything.

  So, to review - Removing state security subsidies will tend to free up vacant land, land (despite the fact that much is owned but unoccupied, either by private individuals or the state) is still plentiful, and millions of people who own no land manage to eat just fine.

  Your line of reasoning regarding land ownership seems to have reached a dead end here.

  Published: April 2, 2006 3:22 PM

• Cosmin

  "How? You seem to agree that locking up large parcels of land, absent the security subsidy that the state represents would be uneconomical, and would decrease over time."
  In order to render the situation economically sound for him, the owner hires locals to exploit the land for him. These people accept to work for him if they have no other land to work. If there was enough land outside the influence of this owner and his ilk to feed the populace, there would be no problem. As I have stipulated before, the problem only arises when owners encroach on the magnitude of land needed for sustainability. Seeing how the farmers have to accept the owner's imposed wages, under threat of starvation, they become his slaves. While they could choose not to work for him, thus rendering his ownership of the land uneconomical, they would succumb to starvation way before the financial situation became critical for the landlord. How can you not understand that when it comes to negociating the wages of these farmers, the owner simply has too much leverage?
  "And since when do you need land to eat? Millions of people in NYC, LA, PHL, BOS, etc do not own a square foot of anything, and most of them eat TOO much, if anything."
  This cheeky comment has nothing to do with reality. Are you saying those cities are self-sustaining? Perhaps they eat because they exploit those who do work the land, through unbalanced trade that is more advantageous for their side than the other, an unfair situation brought about by the state.

  Published: April 2, 2006 4:25 PM

• averros

  Yancey --

  
  No, I don't consider Rothbard or Hoppe to be anarchists.

  
  Well, then you may want to read them. Both are not at all shy about using word "anarchy" to describe their views.
  

  
  An example (Rothbard's interview for New Banner; http://mises.org/web/2667):
  

  As far as I'm concerned, and I think the rest of the movement, too, we are anarcho-capitalists. In other words, we believe that capitalism is the fullest expression of anarchism, and anarchism is the fullest expression of capitalism. Not only are they compatible, but you can't really have one without the other. True anarchism will be capitalism, and true capitalism will be anarchism.
  
  

  
  Sure, you may use your own definition of the word; but don't be surprised that other people don't understand you - especially if you don't spell out your definition explicitly.
  

  Published: April 2, 2006 8:43 PM

• Vince Daliessio

  Me, to Cosmin;

  ""And since when do you need land to eat? Millions of people in NYC, LA, PHL, BOS, etc do not own a square foot of anything, and most of them eat TOO much, if anything."

  Cosmin replies;

  "This cheeky comment has nothing to do with reality."

  I fail to see anything cheeky or unreal about the comment, except that possibly it unseats your argument about the landless suffering for it.

  " Are you saying those cities are self-sustaining?"

  In a word, yes. They produce a surplus of valuable goods and services, which can be exchanged for other goods and services of value. It's called 'trade'.

  "Perhaps they eat because they exploit those who do work the land, through unbalanced trade that is more advantageous for their side than the other, an unfair situation brought about by the state."

  See, here you are just flat-out wrong. People who are good at farming will tend to concentrate on farming, increasing its profitability. People who are good at finance, the arts, or 'human fulfillment', as a Tom Cruise character once termed it in the movie "Risky Business", will tend to concentrate on those things, increasing their profitability. What do these people do with these isolated surpluses? They TRADE them. Say it with me - tr-ade. Tr-ade. Trade!

  Ok, I am just torturing you now, sorry. But I have already gone farther than most anarcho-capitalists would in agreeing that the equilibrium position of land ownership under a-c would go far toward ameliorating the injustice you feel is occurring in this country regarding vacant land.

  Yet you still persist in arguing your points based upon the fantasy that all 300 million Americans want to be subsistence farmers, and you base all of your arguments on that premise, when it simply isn't even CLOSE to reality.You even deride my inarguable point that city people don't own land and don't farm, yet many of them seem to prosper, as do the farmers who supply them with food. How can this reality square with your alleged grevious injustice of 'absentee' land ownership?

  Published: April 2, 2006 10:46 PM

• Paul Marks

  The Lockian Proviso is not a good concept.

  First Locke assumes that the world was first owned in common (an interpretation of the Bible that many other natural law thinkers rejected - holding that unoccupied land was unowned, not owed by the human race as a whole), then Locke collapses political philosophy into economics with his "as much and as good left for others" proviso.

  Litterally there is never "as much and as good" left for others, what Locke means is that there will be higher living standards in private ownership is allowed (rather than communal ownership or no ownership at all).

  Communal anarchists might contest that - and (as the utility of different people can not be objectively compared) someone might say that they liked a few hunter gatherers in a "natural landscape" (with surplus population starving to death) to the thousands of people living in slums that existed even in Locke's day.

  Why should we say that the first people to farm parts of say Iceland (whose decendants live there to this day)do not own the farm land unless they can prove that their activities benefit the human race?

  Why should they have to prove anything? They own the land, there was no one there before there ancestors came (apart from a few Irish Monks in one remote part of the island - and they did NOT claim the whole of Iceland).

  As for land that was stolen in the past - "historical usurpation".

  A criminal must never benefit from his crime and a victim must always have his land back.

  However, it is abusd to say "your great, grandfather bought this land from someone who stole it - therefore give the land up to this person over here whose great grand father may, or may not, have once owned it".

  One might as well say that if aliens arrived on Earth and said "millions of years ago our kind came from this planet, we want it back", we would have a moral obligation to hand it over.

  Published: April 3, 2006 4:04 AM

• Yancey Ward

  Averros,

  I have read a lot of both over the last year. I don't care what they call it, but their ideas are not anarchy. Their ideas are directed to finding ways in which human beings can govern themselves without having to have states that grow in power and scope. It is not a case where I don't find their ideas compelling, only that I don't consider it anarchy.

  Published: April 3, 2006 11:03 AM

• Cosmin

  "- " Are you saying those cities are self-sustaining?"

  - In a word, yes."

  I would like to apologize for not expressing myself clearly. English not being my first language, when I said "self-sustaining" I actually meant "able to sustain themselves". Meaning that if they were (through some cataclysm or whatnot) completely cut off from the rest of the planet, they could go on doing what they do right now and continue to live.

  "You even deride my inarguable point that city people don't own land and don't farm, yet many of them seem to prosper, as do the farmers who supply them with food."
  The farmers who supply them with food don't prosper. They are being exploited. The reason they (and you) don't realize that, is because they exploit other people (cheap foreign labor) in turn, thus bringing their lifestyle back up to what they feel is an acceptable level. You will realize this when you look at a planetary level, rather than focusing on the USA.

  To help you understand my point of view, though, perhaps I should clarify my starting position.

  The way I see it, anarchy means personal freedom. It's not my freedom, or his freedom, it's the concept of freedom itself.
  When everybody is free, everybody works. (Children, infirms and the elderly rely on compassion.) If someone doesn't work, it's because all the needs are met, which can't happen since needs evolve. Thus, whenever a situation exists where someone isn't able to find work, you'll find at its root a restriction of freedom.
  Exclusionary ownership, insofar as it restricts the ability of someone to work, is one such restriction on freedom. (Monopoly on money creation is another example.) You might say: the owner will allow the laborer to work if he simply pays rent. Why would the laborer accept to pay rent? If there is another place where he can go and work without paying rent, he will do so. It's only if there is no such place, that he'll need to work on the land owned by our landlord, who now FORCES rent on him.
  This is why I view exclusionary ownership as a lack of freedom, and why I feel it isn't compatible with anarchy.

  Published: April 3, 2006 11:59 AM

• Person

  I would like to apologize for not expressing myself clearly. English not being my first language, when I said "self-sustaining" I actually meant "able to sustain themselves". Meaning that if they were (through some cataclysm or whatnot) completely cut off from the rest of the planet, they could go on doing what they do right now and continue to live.

  So, because they've adapted to the present reality, rather than a hypothetical extremely improbable reality, obviously their plans are foolish. You see, this is why I stopped thinking you might have something insightful to say. You don't. Your philosophy is basically, "listen to all of these ideas I haven't thought out."

  Published: April 3, 2006 2:16 PM

• mikey

  Cosmin,when someone is unable to find a buyer for his labor, it is because of third party intervention
  in the market(ie government). Say's law applies to labor as well as any other economic good.Any employer trying to manipulate the labor market in the way you suggest would put himself at a competitive disadvantage with other similar firms, who would see a chance for increased profit by hiring the worker.
  Most people are conditioned to see the world as a place where workers agressively seek employment, while employers can sit back and let workers compete to push wages down.In fact, in an unhampered market economy, just the opposite would occur.At the heart of this is the concept that labor is the most limited resource of all,our ability to produce wealth is limited only
  by the supply of labour.

  Published: April 3, 2006 2:46 PM

• Cosmin

  Person, I've no idea what you're trying to say.

  Mikey, I agree with you, except: what happens when the other similar firms also manipulate the market in the same way. And I'm not talking about collusion here, but rather the tacitly accepted overhead that the market "can bear". As soon as something (anything) is asked of a laborer by a third party in order for him to ply his trade, his freedom has been hampered.

  Published: April 3, 2006 4:11 PM

• Paul Edwards

  Cosmin,

  In Rothbard’s “THE SPOONER-TUCKER DOCTRINE: AN ECONOMIST’S VIEW�, he explains how rather than being exploitation, capital investment, interest and profit helps the workers and indeed is a benefit to all of society:

  “It should be remembered by radicals that, if they wanted to, all workers could refuse to work for wages and instead form their own producers’ cooperatives and wait for years for their pay until the products are sold to the consumers; the fact that they do not do so, shows the enormous advantage of the capital investment, wage-paying system as a means of allowing workers to earn money far in advance of the sale of their products. Far from being exploitation of the workers, capital investment and the interest-profit system is an enormous boon to them and to all of society.�

  http://mises.org/journals/jls/20_1/20_1_2.pdf

  Published: April 3, 2006 6:15 PM

• Cosmin

  Paul, I don't agree with that. (Shocking, I know!)
  Workers and consumers are the same people! If they don't wait untill the products are ready to be sold, they have nothing to spend their pay on.
  I don't see how anyone, be it government, or investors, creates jobs. Needs create jobs. Seeing how all needs are not and will not be fulfilled, there can be no joblessness. Capital investment is a "solution" to an unnatural economic phenomenon: mass unemployment. A more natural solution would be anarchy.

  Published: April 3, 2006 6:46 PM

• Vince Daliessio

  Cosmin;

  "I don't see how anyone, be it government, or investors, creates jobs. Needs create jobs. Seeing how all needs are not and will not be fulfilled, there can be no joblessness."

  Well...sort of. Wants are expressed as a market price. They are fulfilled by people who are seeking to make a profit, in other words, to sell those wanted goods for more than the cost of production.

  No entrepreneur in his right mind would risk his investment unless he can make more producing a product than leaving it in the bank. So there must be an adequate profit or production will not occur. If workers are willing to work for a wage that will allow for a sufficient profit, then they will be employed. If not, they will not.

  Here in the USA, you have a choice whether or not to work - if not, you can deal drugs or leech off welfare. If you join a union, you can refuse work, and the government pays you.

  "Capital investment is a "solution" to an unnatural economic phenomenon: mass unemployment. "

  More nonsense. You haven't refuted my assertion that few if any Americans want to live a subsistence life on a farm. This question was settled a century ago when rural people left farms in droves for industry. Capital investment (and not a little mercantilism, sad to say) made that happen.

  "A more natural solution would be anarchy."

  I hold that under anarchy, people will be freer than now to pursue their fortunes in any field they choose than they are now. But if anything, more people will come to earn their living as entrepreneurs, not fewer.

  Published: April 3, 2006 9:52 PM

• Cosmin

  "They are fulfilled by people who are seeking to make a profit, in other words, to sell those wanted goods for more than the cost of production."
  Vince, don't get me started on profits!
  "No entrepreneur in his right mind would risk his investment unless he can make more producing a product than leaving it in the bank. So there must be an adequate profit or production will not occur."
  Production will occur, and the entrepreneur is not needed. I think the desire for consumption is limitless and production can naturally only try to keep up. Are you saying that production depends on the ability to raise the desire for consumption? That consumers need to be coaxed into paying more than an object's worth, else production doesn't take place? Here's an article detailing how your view is wrong: http://mises.org/daily/2079
  "You haven't refuted my assertion that few if any Americans want to live a subsistence life on a farm."
  I don't refute it because I don't hold the contrary view, irrespective of your efforts to impute it to me.
  "Capital investment [...] made that happen."
  Technological advancements made that happen. There simply weren't as many people needed on the farm.

  Published: April 3, 2006 10:53 PM

• Paul Edwards

  “Workers and consumers are the same people!�

  That is true. And equally valid is this: workers, consumers and savers/investors are the same people, or can be if they so choose; to the extent that the worker chooses to save and invest, they are capitalists.

  “If they don't wait until the products are ready to be sold, they have nothing to spend their pay on.�

  People often don’t buy what they work on. But this is not the point. The point is that besides capital, land and labor, time is another input to production. Someone must forgo consumption to save and then invest in capital, land and labor up front, to yield a product to sell in the future. Time is a big element in production. What Rothbard is saying is this: someone has to put the investment up front. This can be the laborer just as much as it can be anyone else. The laborer can be a capitalist. The fact is, not every laborer is interested in putting up his savings, and perhaps forgo his wages for the production period to regain his investment and be paid with interest in the future. If he were, he would be a capitalist. If he is not, someone else must put up the capital, and whoever this is, he is the capitalist. Economically, it is unimportant who invests, the laborer or someone else. The fact is: someone must save first and invest up front, for production using capital to take place for a duration, and for a product to be created and sold in the future.

  �I don't see how anyone, be it government, or investors, creates jobs. Needs create jobs. Seeing how all needs are not and will not be fulfilled, there can be no joblessness.�

  The creation of jobs is not the ultimate thing. It is the maximizing of the productivity of labor that is what is important to increase overall wealth and well-being. This is done through an increase in capital per capita and the division of labor. Having everyone busy working is not what lifts people out of subsistence and poverty. Increasing their wealth through improved production tools and techniques is. The cycle that achieves this is work, production, saving, investing. No other means of lifting people from subsistence living to a civilized and cultured existence is known to man.

  “Capital investment is a "solution" to an unnatural economic phenomenon: mass unemployment. A more natural solution would be anarchy.�

  Capitalism and anarchy go hand in hand. The perfection of one is the perfection of the other. Anarchy without pure unhampered capitalism is unimaginable. There can be no anarchy without capitalism: a completely free market.
  

  Published: April 3, 2006 11:44 PM

• Yancey Ward

  Cosmin, with these last few comments clearly demonstrates Bylund's thesis.

  
  Great commnent, Paul, at 11:44 p.m.

  Published: April 4, 2006 9:52 AM

• Paul Edwards

  "You can't have in a democracy various groups with arms - you have to have the state with a monopoly on power," Condoleeza Rice, the US secretary of state, said at the end of her two-day visit to Baghdad yesterday.

  Well there you have it: the democratic state all summed up by our very own Condi Rice! What great fortune it is for our leaders that men do not think (or hear)!

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1746233,00.html

  Published: April 4, 2006 11:50 AM

• mikey

  Cosmin, I'm not sure who this third party would be, in a society with no man made agency of coercion,holding a monopoly on the use of force.
  Shifting gears slightly, you might be interested in the Hutterites,an example of anarcho-socialism that actually works.In their colonies all property is held in common.They are quite prosperous, and truly appear to live by the credo
  "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his need".
  However, I would point out the following-They depend on the outside world to trade with, and to obtain market information,so they can decide what to produce and how much.
  Second,they consume very little, in accordance with their religious beliefs.(Their austere lifestyle has not attracted many imitators or converts from the outside).On the other hand they are extremely productive and skillful farmers, specializing in grain growing.(specialization of labor).
  Third, they recognize that there is a limit to how large any colony can grow, then a new colony must split off.(Too large an operation= inefficiency.This is part of the reason the large collective farms in the Soviet Union were not very productive.)

  Published: April 4, 2006 1:26 PM

• Cosmin

  "One of the rules of homesteading is that you have to mix your labor with the resource if you are going to claim to own it. This is perfectly reasonable and intuitively correct. Christopher Columbus can't show up to North America and declare that he owns it all anymore than the first settler in space can claim to own the galaxy. The resource must be put to specific use by the claimant."
  :)
  New article: http://mises.org/daily/2106

  Published: April 4, 2006 1:27 PM

• averros

  Yancey -- "anarchy" means lack of rule by the political class, not chaos.

  The connotation of chaos and lawlessness is purely the result of statist propaganda and practices. Chaos happens when states break down and before the self-defense is established by the citizens who were both disarmed and brainwashed by the state - so the collapse leaves them defenseless against petty criminals, both physically and, more important, mentally.

  This chaotic transitional state is a statist scarecrow by which they justify the need for the kleptocratic state. In fact, it is not at all that bad - the lawlessness and chaos following the collapse of the USSR involved a lot of well-publicized shoot-outs between the criminals, but in a few years most of the criminal groups had their most brainless and aggressive thugs eliminated, and transformed themselves into legitimate private protection agencies or banks. The period of the post-communist lawlessness was also a period of the tremendous economical recovery -- from 1991 until 1998 the country went from near-starvation to quite livable (to the point that more than few of my friends decided to move back from US or Europe).

  The ascendance of Putin and establishment of the "order" (meaning, in practice, elevation of his band of thugs and suppression of the competitors) brought the stagnation, the monetary crisis, unbearable taxes, and the defenselessness of even the richest citizens againts the kleptocracy (as exemplified by the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky).

  Right now it is a lot more dangerous to be wealthy there than it was when there was "no order". And poorer people are not faring any better - a lot of employment opportunities evaporated, and the local police is doing nothing to combat petty crime, but is quite effective in extortion. TV went from being full of action movies and overt sexuality (which, while not the pinnacle of good taste, were at least somewhat entertaining) to rabid xenophobia presented as "news" and adulation of Mr.Presidente.

  I guess I'll take the chaos any time over that order.

  Published: April 4, 2006 3:23 PM

• Yancey Ward

  Averros,

  Like I wrote earlier in response to Vince, we define anarchy differently. However, I will elaborate just a bit.

  If centralizing authorities like the US government and the various state and local governments collapsed tomorrow, men and women would work together to keep order and establish cooperative relationships to prevent theft and violent crimes like murder- I do not believe things would devolve into complete chaos, though times would be tough. It is human nature to do this, and such cooperative behavior will move to eliminate such perpetrators within the midst of the new smaller, distributed societies- either by expulsion, incarceration, or elimination. I contend that such arrangements are still states, though much, much smaller. As societies advance, they reach out to others for trade, and these cooperative arrangements extend their boundaries slowly, but surely, to cover greater geographical areas. The key is limit the scope of such governing cooperation, not to eliminate it altogether.

  Published: April 4, 2006 4:05 PM

• Paul Edwards

  Are these arrangements coercive? If not, do you have a term that identifies voluntary social arrangements and also the coercive ones? I would use the terms covenantal community versus a state, respectively, myself.

  Published: April 4, 2006 4:38 PM

• Vince Daliessio

  Cosmin;

  " Are you saying that production depends on the ability to raise the desire for consumption? That consumers need to be coaxed into paying more than an object's worth, else production doesn't take place?"

  NO, and I don't see how you got that out of anything I said. I said that, in general, producers won't produce unless they can do so at a profit. At some point, the demand for any product will raise the price to where it is more profitable to produce the good than to sit on the capital. demand for consumption is what causes production.

  Published: April 4, 2006 6:28 PM

• Vince Daliessio

  Cosmin;

  ""Capital investment [...] made that happen."
  Technological advancements made that happen. There simply weren't as many people needed on the farm."

  If this is the case, what would they have done without industry to provide them an alternate way to make a living? Starve, that's what.

  And you have the proliferation of technology exactly backward - rising real wages make technology cheaper relative to human labor. The pull of the factory drove up wages, which sent farm wage rates past the economic threshold for many technologies. Increased demand increases prices - higher prices call more production into existence. This is the iron law of a free economy. You are arguing a position that does not hold up to scrutiny.
  

  Published: April 5, 2006 2:38 PM

• Yancey Ward

  Paul,

  Let us use the example of a murderer within the midst: to stop his actions, someone/s must use coercion. These someones, if it is a cooperative effort of like-minded individuals constitutes a government, in my humble opinion, and the trick is to keep such cooperative efforts from extending themselves into the enforcement of things like public education, for example, or to the granting of special privileges to themselves or their cronies. It is a neverending battle, even if you manage to produce the distributed "private" organizations that you, myself, or others advocate.

  Published: April 5, 2006 3:06 PM

• Paul Edwards

  Yancey,

  I am not sure to what extent ours is a terminological difference versus a difference in the way we look at things, but let me take a go at finding out.

  1. "a murderer within the midst: to stop his actions, someone/s must use coercion."

  By "must use coercion", do you really mean "must use defensive violence"? If so, i agree with you. The more common meaning of coercion is "the initiation of violence" or "aggression". If you mean it in this, the common way, i disagree with your comment 1.

  2. "These someones, if it is a cooperative effort of like-minded individuals constitutes a government"

  By "government" do you mean an aggressive, initiator of violence which forcefully maintains a territorial based monopoly on violence, taxation and decision-making services? If so, this is a state, and i say this does not follow and i disagree with comment 2.

  Rather, i argue that with no state, in anarchy, private companies can compete to provide defense, protection, courts, and law enforcement services, which could also be labeled government but would not be coercive, would be voluntarily subscribed to, and so would not constitute a state.

  With protection provided and yet with no state, i say it is anarchy, even though people do "govern" themselves via voluntary agreements that provide for the use of defensive force and law enforcement.
  

  Published: April 5, 2006 3:40 PM

• tz

  Either the law or persons are sovereign, so when you talk about personal sovereignty it can only mean it in the sense of sovereign immunity - the King is the law, or above the law. But if we are two kings, we can be at peace or war, there can be no thought of self-ownership or any other kind. Ownership exists and is defined at my (and your) pleasure if we are truly Sovereign. However if you make the (Natural) Law or (from) Reason sovereign (which I think the Scholastics and many others wouldn't have a problem with), it is and you aren't.

  Let me try a reductio ad absurdum with corporations and liability. In Kinsella's example, he talks about a truck driver who causes an accident. But what if the parent corp doesn't employ the driver, but employs the "driver-as-corporation", which is formed per transaction, so the total money would merely be payment for that set of trips (and hence liability would be limited to that, where the driver-as-corp would just go bankrupt). Robert Kiosaki (Rich Dad) described a corporation as a "clone". So clone myself, and let the clone be slaughtered or go bankrupt.

  Bad drivers with few assets might work more cheaply than good drivers. Old trucks cheaper than new ones. Maintenance costs. At some point it is cheaper to risk an accident and bankruptcy of the corporation - if the corporation can pin the entire blame on the driver (whom they hire cheaply though they know has problems, gives him a truck with bad brakes, etc.) they have escaped their liability. If there is a crash, maybe the driver would be liable, but again if the sum of liability is reduced, then the corporation is a fraud. If liability is maintained - torts more than creditors, since the latter volunteer as someone pointed out, then there are NO differences between a corporation and something more like a partnership (under anarchy). Why would creditors prefer limited liability of debtors, and if they did, why would the debtors need a corporation?

  One other problem with corporations is that they can in some ways cheat death. If a property is valued, but the old man doesn't want to sell, eventually he is going to die and his estate will have it, then his heirs. But if it is in a corporation, the corporation need never die. Ownership without corporations cannot be perpetual because the owners aren't.
  

  Published: April 9, 2006 12:55 AM

• liberty

  Socialism requires a state. We should have learned that by now. Capitalism requires a state too - but a much much smaller one.

  While Socialism requires centralization that leads to totalitarianism, capitalism only requires a state that can enforce private property laws, contracts and protection of other basic rights (life and liberty) and the institutions necessary to keep this going (eg democratic).
  

  Published: April 12, 2006 10:36 AM

• lvleph

  I have to disagree with your assertion that, "Socialists refer to "capitalism" as the system in which the state hands out and protects capitalists' privileges — and therefore oppression of labor workers." Capitalism is a system by which an individual controls the means of production, capital. This capitalist then hires workers at the lowest rate possible. The rate is so low that workers can barely make ends meet. This system of wage slavery is inherent in capitalism and is what Anarchists opposed, since it is a system of hierarchy and oppression.

  However, no matter how many times I explain this to An-Caps, they still never seem to get it. I am an Anarcho-Syndaclist, but I am not opposed to a free market system, a system by which the workers control the means of production but sell commodities on a market based system.

  Published: August 10, 2008 11:21 PM